XI The Varieties of Apple
Every seedling of the pomological apples is a new variety. Some of these seedlings are so good that they are named and introduced into cultivation. They are grafted on other stocks, and become part of the great inheritance of desirable apples.
It is to be expected that in the long processes of time in many countries the number of varieties will accumulate to high numbers. No one knows all the kinds that have been named and propagated, but they run into many thousands. No one book contains them all, although some of the manuals are voluminous. Varieties drop out of existence, being no longer propagated; new varieties come in.
So the lists of varieties gradually change. A list of one hundred years ago would contain many names strange to us. Thus, of the sixty apples in “A Select List of Fruit-Trees” by Bernard M’Mahon, published in “The American Gardener’s Calendar,” in 1806, not more than six or eight would be understandable to a planter of the present day.
With the standardizing of practices in the commercial growing of fruits, the tendency is to reduce the number of varieties to small proportions; it is these varieties that the nurserymen propagate. Here and there over the country are still trees of the extra-quality but uncommercial varieties known to a former generation. If the amateur now wants to grow these varieties, he must find cions as best he can by patient correspondence, and graft them on his own trees. When I planted an orchard twenty-five years ago, I found cions of Jefferis here, of Dyer there, of Mother, Swaar and Chenango in other places.
In the enlarged edition of Downing’s “Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America,” 1872, are descriptions of 1856 varieties, of which 1099 are American in origin, 585 foreign, 172 of origin unknown. The lists are not only much smaller in these days, but the foreign element tends to pass out. With the introduction of the Russian apples for the cold North in the latter part of the past century, the importation of foreign varieties practically ceased, as it ceased also for the pears at an earlier date with the introductions of Manning, Wilder and others. The epoch of the “testing” of varieties passed away, and with it has gone an appreciative attitude toward fruits and even toward life that constitutes a sad lack in our day.
About thirty years ago (1892) I compiled an inventory of all the varieties of apple-trees sold in North America, as listed in the ninety-five nurserymen’s catalogues that came to my hand. The inventory contains 878 varieties. In the present year, however, perhaps not more than 100 varieties are handled by nurserymen in Eastern United States. Probably the dealer and grower would consider even this small number much too great. The highly developed standardized business of the present day, aiming at quantity-production, naturally reduces the variety of products, whether in manufacturing or horticulture, and aims at uniformity. Under the influence of this leadership, we are losing many of the old products, varieties of apples among the rest.
Why do we need so many kinds of apples? Because there are so many folks. A person has a right to gratify his legitimate tastes. If he wants twenty or forty kinds of apples for his personal use, running from Early Harvest to Roxbury Russet, he should be accorded the privilege. Some place should be provided where he may obtain trees or cions. There is merit in variety itself. It provides more points of contact with life, and leads away from uniformity and monotony.
The leading varieties of apples, that have become dominant over wide regions, have been great benefactors to man. The original tree should be carefully preserved till the last, by historical or other societies; and then a monument should be placed at the spot. Monuments have been erected to the Baldwin, Northern Spy, McIntosh and other apples. We should never lose our touch with the origins of men, events, notable achievements, outstanding products of nature.
I fear it is now a habit with many fruit-growers to minimize the interest in varieties, placing the emphasis on tillage, spraying and management of plantations. Yet, the only reason why we expend all the labor is that we may grow a given kind of apple; the variety is the final purpose.
In this little book we cannot discuss varieties at length. There are special books on this fascinating subject. But we may have before us a compiled list by way of interesting suggestion. The list is sorted from the Catalogue of Fruits of the American Pomological Society, 1901, the last year in which the catalogue was published with quality rated on a scale of 10. On such a scale, Ben Davis ranks 4-5; Baldwin, 5-6; Wealthy and York Imperial, 6-7; Rhode Island Greening, 7-8; Northern Spy, 8-9; Yellow Newtown (Albermarle Pippin) 9-10. There is no apple in the entire catalogue of 324 kinds (not including crab-apples) rated wholly lower than 4 in quality except one alone and this is grown for cider only, although several varieties of minor importance bear the marks 3-4. Only two varieties are rated exclusively 10, the Garden Royal, a Massachusetts summer-fall apple, little known to planters, and the familiar Esopus Spitzenberg. Of course judgments differ widely in these matters, as there are no inflexible criteria for the scoring of quality; yet this extensive list is probably our soundest approach to the subject.
The varieties in the catalogue of the American Pomological Society are starred if “known to succeed in a given district” and double-starred “if highly successful.” North America is thrown into nineteen districts for the purposes of this catalogue (which comprises other fruits besides apples). For our purposes we may combine them into six more or less indefinite great regions: n. e., the northeastern part of the country, Delaware and Pennsylvania to eastern Canada; s. e., the parts south of this area and mostly east of the Mississippi; n. c., north central, from Kansas and Missouri north; s. w., Texas to Arizona; mt., the mountain states of the Rockies west to the Sierras, including of course much high plains country; pac., the Pacific slope, Washington to southern California.
Of the varieties starred and double-starred in these various geographical regions there are 107; these are listed herewith. Of course the intervening twenty years might change the rating of some of these apples, other varieties have come to the front, and certain ones of these older worthies are receding still further into the background; but the exhibit is suggestive none the less.
Arkansas—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Bailey (Sweet)—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Baker—n.e.
Baldwin—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., s.w., pac.
Beach—s.e.
Belle Bonne—n.e.
Ben Davis—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Bietigheimer—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Bledsoe—s.e.
Blenheim—n.e., n.c.
Blue Pearmain—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Bough, Sweet—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Bryan—s.e., mt.
Buckingham—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Canada Reinette—n.e., n.c., mt.
Clayton—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Clyde—n.e., n.c.
Cogswell—n.e.
Cooper—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Cracking—s.e., n.c.
Doyle—s.e.
Early Pennock—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Esopus (Spitzenburg)—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Ewalt—n.e., s.e., mt.
Fallawater—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Fall Harvey—n.e., mt.
Fall Jenneting—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Fall Orange—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Fall Pippin—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Fanny—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w.
Farrar—s.e.
Foundling—n.e.
Gano—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Gilbert—s.e.
Golding—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Gravenstein—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., s.w., pac.
Hagloe—n.e., s.e.
Hoover—s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Hopewell—n.c.
Horse—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Hubbardston—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w.
Hunge—s.e.
Huntsman—s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Isham (Sweet)—n.c.
Jacobs Sweet—n.e.
Kent—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Kernodle—s.e.
Lady Sweet—n.e., mt.
Lankford—n.e., s.e.
Lawver—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Lilly (of Kent)—n.e.
Lowe—s.e.
Lowell—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
McAfee—n.e., s.e, mt.
McCuller—s.e.
McMahon—n.e., n.c., mt.
Magog—n.e.
Maverack—s.e.
Milwaukee—n.c.
Minister—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Monmouth—s.e., n.c., mt.
Newell—n.c.
Nickajack—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Northern Spy—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Northwestern (Greening)—n.e., n.c., mt.
Oconee—n.e., s.e.
Ohio Nonpareil—n.e., s.e.
Ohio Pippin—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Ortley—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Paragon—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Patten (Greening)—n.c.
Pease—n.e.
Peck (Pleasant)—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Peter—n.c.
Pewaukee—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Porter—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Pumpkin Sweet—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Quince—n.e., n.c.
Ramsdell (Sweet)—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Red Astrachan—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Rhode Island (Greening)—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Ridge (Pippin)—n.e.
Rolfe—n.e.
Rome—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Stark—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Starkey—n.e., s.e.
Stayman Winesap—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Sterling—n.e., n.c.
Summer King—n.e., s.e.
Swaar—n.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Taunton—s.e.
Titovka—n.e., mt.
Tompkins King—n.e., s.e., mt., pac.
Twenty Ounce—n.e., s.e., s.w., mt.
Utter—n.c.
Vanhoy—n.e., s.e.
Virginia Greening—s.e., mt.
Washington (Strawberry)—n.e., s.e., mt.
Watson—s.e.
White Pippin—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Wine—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Wistal—s.e., s.w.
Wolf River—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Yellow Bellflower—n.e., s.e., s.w., mt., pac.
Yellow Newtown—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Yopp—s.e.
York Imperial—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
There are many odd varieties of apple not found in any list but about which questions are likely to arise. One of these is the Sweet-and-Sour. There is an old ribbed variety of this name, the ribs having an acid flesh and the furrows sweetish; it is little known and of no special value. Apples are sometimes found that are sweetish on one side and sourish on the other. The reasons for this kind of variation are no more understood than are those responsible for variance in color or shape or durability. One yet sometimes hears the pleasant fable that sweet-and-sour apples are produced by splitting the bud when the tree was propagated.
The Surprise is a small whitish apple with light red flesh. It is indeed a surprise to bite into such an apple, but it has little merit. It is an early winter variety.
One is frequently asked about the Sheepnose apple, particularly by older people who remember it from early days and who deplore its infrequency in these latter times. The sheepnose shape—long-conical—is an infrequent variation, as apples go, and apparently none of these forms chances to have sufficient merit to keep it in the lists. The name is often applied to the Black Gilliflower, an old apple more than three inches long, dark red, of light weight perhaps because of the large core, ripening late in autumn to midwinter. It seems to be specially prized by children, perhaps in part because of its unusual shape and in part by its aromatic fragrance; but it is not a high-class apple, and is now little seen. With the Rambo, Vandevere, some of the russets, Early Harvest, Jersey Sweet and other old worthies, it probably will pass away unless rescued here and there by the amateur. To the lover of choice fruit nothing is old; every succeeding crop is as choice and new as is the new year itself, and one waits for it again and again.
One hears of seedless and no-core apples, as also of pears. The core is present but greatly reduced in size, and the seeds may be few and small. I have also raised practically seedless tomatoes. All these are infrequent variations that may be propagated by asexual parts (cuttings, cions), but as yet none of them has any outstanding value.
The reader will now ask me about the water-core apples, so much sought and prized by youngsters. The water-core is not characteristic of a variety, although occurring in some varieties more frequently than in others. It is a physiological condition, supposed to be associated with a relatively low transpiration (evaporation) so that excess water is held in the fruit. In certain seasons this condition is marked, and also in cloudy regions and often on young trees that have an over-supply of moisture. Yet such cores occur in old trees and sometimes with more or less regularity. What the physiological inability may be in such cases to dispose of excess moisture appears to be undetermined.
Now and then one finds a double apple, with two fruits grown solidly together, two blossom ends and a single stem. A seedling tree I knew as a boy bore such apples frequently, sometimes a score of them among the crop of the year. This, of course, is a malformation or teratological state. Apparently two flowers coalesce to form these fruits. On the tree of which I speak, the two fruits were about equal in size, making a large, widened, edible apple, but I have known of other cases in which a diminutive undeveloped fruit is attached to the side of a normal one.
Perhaps the oddest of them all is the “Bloomless apple.” It is said to have no flowers. In fact, however, the flowers are present but they lack showy petals and are therefore not conspicuous. The bloomless apple is a monstrous state, the cause of which is unknown. Now and then a tree is reported. It was described at least as long ago as 1768, and in 1770 Muenchhausen called it Pyrus apetala (the petalless pyrus). The flowers have no stamens, and apparently they are pollinated from any other apples in the vicinity. In 1785, Moench described it as Pyrus dioica (the diœcious pyrus, sexes separated on different plants). The ovary is also malformed, having six or seven and sometimes probably more cells, and bearing ten to fifteen styles. The resulting fruit has a core character unknown in other apples but approached in certain apple-like fruits, as the medlar. The fruit has a hole or opening from the calyx (which is open) into the core; and the core is roughly double, one series above the other. The fruit, in such specimens as I have seen or read about, has no horticultural merit; but it is a curiosity of great botanical interest. It appears now and then in widely separated places, the trees probably having originated as chance seedlings. The fruits from the different originations are not always the same in size and form, but the flowers apparently all have the same malformed character.
The apple is preeminently the home fruit. It is not transitory. It spans every season. In an indifferent cellar I keep apples till apples come again. The apple stands up, keeps well on the table. Children may handle it. In color and form it satisfies any taste. Its rondure is perfect. The cavity is deep, graceful and well moulded, holding the good stem securely. The basin is a natural summit and termination of the curvatures, bringing all the lines together, finishing them in the ornaments of the remaining calyx. The fruit adapts itself to the hand. The fingers close pleasantly over it, fitting its figure. It has a solid feel. The flesh of a good apple is crisp, breaking, melting, coolly acid or mildly sweet. It has a fracture, as one bites it, possessed by no other fruit. One likes to feel the snap and break of it. There is a stability about it that satisfies; it holds its shape till the last bite. One likes to linger on an apple, to sit by a fireside to eat it, to munch it waiting on a log when there is no hurry, to have another apple with which to invite a friend.
Now I am not thinking of the Ben Davis apple or any of its kind. I do not want to be doomed to one variety of apple, or even to half a dozen kinds, and particularly I do not want a poor one. There are enough good apples, if we can get them. The days of the amateur fruit-growers seem to be passing. At least we do not hear much of them in society or in many of the meetings of horticulturists. There may be many reasons, but two are evident: we give the public indifferent fruits, and thereby neither educate the taste or stimulate the desire for more; we do not provide them places from which they can get plants of many of the choicest things. Yet on a good amateur interest in fruits depends, in the end, the real success of commercial fruit-growing. Just now we are trying to increase the consumption of apples, to lead the people to eat an apple a day: it cannot be accomplished by customary commercial methods. To eat an apple a day is a question of affections and emotions.
We have had great riches in our varieties of apples. It has been a vast resource to have a small home plantation of many good varieties, each perfect in its season. The great commercial apple-growing has been carried to high perfection of organization and care. More perfect apples are put on the market, in proportion to numbers, than ever before,—carefully grown and graded and handled. I have watched this American development with growing pride. The quantity-production makes for greater perfection of product, but it does not make for variety and human interest, nor for high-quality varieties. We shall still improve it. Masterful men will perfect organizations. The high character and attainment of the commanding fruit-growers, nurserymen and dealers are good augury for the future. But all this is not sufficient. Quantity-production will be an increasing source of wealth, but it cannot satisfy the soul.
The objects and productions of high intrinsic merit are preserved by the amateur. It is so in art and letters. It is necessarily so. A body of amateurs is an essential background to the development of science. The late Professor Pickering, renowned astronomer, encouraged the amateur societies of star-observers, and others. The amateurs in the background, disinterested and unselfish, support appropriations by legislatures for even abstruse public work. The amateur is the embodiment of the best in the common life, the conservator of aspirations, the fulfillment of democratic freedom. I hope pomology will not lag in this respect. In all lines I hope that professionalism will not subjugate the man who follows a subject for the love of it rather than for the gain of it or for the pride of it. In horticulture, when we lose the amateur, who, as the word means, is the lover, we lose the ideals.
Naturally, the nurseryman cannot grow trees of all the good apples that may be wanted. The experiment stations cannot maintain living museums of them, for their function is to investigate rather than to preserve. Arboretums are concerned with other activities. Is there not some person of means, desiring to do good to his successors, ready now to establish a fructicetum in perpetuum for the purpose of preserving a single tree of at least one hundred of the choicest apples, to the end that a record may be kept and that amateurs may be supplied with cions thereof?