IX The Dwarf Apple-Tree
We have learned that many kinds of apples and apple-trees may come from a batch of seeds. Differences are expressed in the tree as well as in the fruit. In fact, stature is usually one of the characteristics of the variety. Here I open Downing’s great book, “The Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America,” and find the description of a certain variety beginning: “Tree while young very slow in its growth, but makes a compact well-formed head in the orchard,” and another: “Tree vigorous, upright spreading, and productive.” We know the small stature and early bearing of the Wagener (wherefore it is often planted in the orchard as a filler), and the great wide-spreading head of the Tompkins King with the apples scattered through the tree.
Now it so happens that in the course of time certain great races of the apple-tree have arisen, we do not know just why or how. There is the race or family of the russets and of the Fameuse. So are there several races very small in stature, remaining perhaps no larger than bushes. If we were to propagate any of the ordinary apples on such diminutive stocks, we should have a “dwarf apple-tree.”
The dwarf apple, then, is not a question of variety but of stock. Any variety may be grown as a dwarf by grafting it on a plant that naturally remains small, although some varieties are more adaptable than others to the purpose.
If seeds of the natural diminutive apple-tree are sown, a variety of trees and apples may be expected. The fruits would probably be inferior. Probably the stature would vary between different seedlings. If we are to get the effect of dwarfness, we must be sure that the stock is itself really dwarf. Therefore, to eliminate variation and also because seeds of natural dwarf apples may not be had in sufficient quantity, the stocks are propagated by layers rather than by seeds.
The diminutive tree, when well established, is cut off near the ground. Sprouts arise. Some kinds sucker very freely. If earth is mounded up around the sprouts, roots form on them and the sprouts may be removed and treated as if they were seedling stocks. Usually the mounding is not performed until the shoots have made one season’s growth. Gooseberries and some other plants are often propagated by mound-layers. In the case of the gooseberry, however, it is desired that the layer reproduce the parent—it may be Downing or Whitesmith—and therefore it is planted without further manipulation. But in the case of the apple, we do not want the layer to reproduce the parent, for the parent would probably bear an inferior fruit since it does not represent an “improved” or recognized variety; therefore the layer is grafted or budded with the particular variety we desire to grow as a dwarf tree.
Dwarf trees are grown in America, if at all, only in gardens, where extra attention may be given them. Only high-class kinds should be attempted on dwarfs, for the quantity-production of commercial apples must be obtained by less intensive methods on cheaper lands.
Better fruits often are grown on dwarf than on standards, for two reasons: It is usual to propagate only the best varieties on dwarf stock; the little tree must receive extra care in pruning and in every other way. Its bushel of apples must be choice, every one, to make the effort of growing the tree worth the while. Under European conditions where land is high-priced and labor has been relatively cheap, it is possible (and common) to raise apples on dwarfs for market, as it is profitable to terrace the hillsides with human labor; but in North America the conditions are practically the reverse and the dwarf tree cannot compete with the standard orchard tree.
The growing of a dwarf tree is essentially a gardening practice. It requires great skill. The spurs are produced and protected to a nicety. Every fruit may be the separate product of handwork. The fertilizing, mulching, watering, are carefully regulated for every tree. Often the trees are trained on cordons, espaliers, trellises or walls. The individual fruits may be tied up or bagged. All this is very different from the raising of apples by means of tractors and other machinery, gangs of pruners and pickers, broadside extensive methods, with highly organized systems of handling and marketing, in all of which the money-measure is the chief consideration. It is for all these reasons that the growing of a few dwarf apple-trees may afford such intimate satisfaction to a careful man who prizes the result of his skill.
The dwarfs are grown as little trees branching near the ground, headed in at top and side and kept within shape and bounds. If they are of the dwarfest dwarfs and not trained on trellis or wall (as they usually are not in America), the fruit may be gathered by a man standing on the ground, even from old trees. The dwarfs are planted eight to ten feet apart when grown in regular plantation.
Be it said that certain kinds of stocks produce trees only semi-dwarf; and in all cases if the tree is planted so deep that roots strike from the cion, the top will probably outgrow the stock, being supplied in part or even entirely by its own roots.
This brings us to a consideration of some of the kinds of dwarf stocks, or dwarf races of the apple-tree. Be it said, in understanding of the subject, that there are naturally dwarf forms of many plants, and probably all ordinary plants are capable of producing them. Thus there are very compact condensed forms of arbor-vitae, Norway spruce, peach-tree. These have originated as seed sports and are multiplied by cuttings. So are there dwarf tomatoes, dwarf China asters, dwarf sweet peas, all coming more or less true from seeds, for these species (of short generations) have been bred to reproduce their variations. The inquirer must not suppose, therefore, that the races of dwarf apple-trees are an anomally in the vegetable kingdom.
It is customary to speak of two classes or races of dwarf apple-trees, the Paradise and the Doucin. The former kinds are the smaller, the trees on their own roots sometimes reaching not more than four feet in height at full bearing maturity. On the Paradise stocks, the grafted apple-tree is very small; it is a true dwarf. The Doucin trees are by nature larger, and apples grafted on them make semi-dwarf trees, midway in stature between the real dwarfs and the common standard or “free” apple-trees.
The case is not so simple, however, as this brief statement would make it appear. There are many kinds of Paradise stock, as also of Doucin. If one were to bring together living plants of all the kinds of natural dwarfs and semi-dwarfs that could be found in nurseries and growing collections, one would undoubtedly find a nearly complete series, so far as stature of tree is concerned, from the very dwarf to the full-sized standard tree. To say that a person is growing grafted dwarf apple-trees does not signify how large the trees may be expected to grow, for one may not know the particular kind of stocks on which the variety is grafted. In fact, it is considered even in Europe, where dwarf apples are chiefly grown, that the proper identification of dwarf stocks is still a subject for careful investigation.
When the Paradise dwarfs first came into existence is undetermined. They appear to have been known in the Middle Ages. The many races, as the Dutch, French, Metz, Nonsuch, Broad-leaved, indicate an ancient origin. We cannot be too certain what apple-trees were meant in the early references to the Paradise apple. The fruits of the present natural Paradise apple-trees are not sufficiently attractive to justify us in considering them the “Tree of Paradise” or apple of the Garden of Eden, which circumstance is supposed by some to account for the name. “Paradise” was originally a park or pleasure ground, applied also to the Garden of Eden, and later to horticultural gardens. John Parkinson wrote his great treatise on horticulture, 1629, under the title, “Paradisi in Sole Paradisus terrestris; or, a Choice Garden of all Sorts of Rarest Flowers, etc.” Now we use the word for gardens of bliss.
The word Doucin, from the Italian, is supposed originally to have designated apples of sweet flavor, but it now applies technically to a class or race of semi-dwarf apple-trees.
For the purpose of this little book, however, the interest in the dwarf apple centers not so much in the origin of the stock as in the natural-history of the tree itself and the good skill of hand and heart that one may expend in the growing of it. If one would come close to a plant, knowing it intimately in every season, causing it to respond to sympathetic treatment through a series of years, then a garden collection of dwarf apples may satisfy the desire. It is too bad that we do not have time to cultivate the dwarfs often in the yards and gardens of North America. We are more familiar with the raising of dwarf pears (which are grafted on quince stocks since there is no similar race of natural dwarf pear-tree), but we do not give them the thumb-and-finger care that is demanded for the choicest results. The abundance of apples in the market should only stimulate the desire of the connoisseur to have trees and fruits that are wholly personal. The market produce can never gratify the affections.