330 The Apples of New York. 



Scattering" trees of this variety are found in various parts of the 

 state. It is of no special value but is propagated as a curiosity. 

 Thacher (2) quotes the following very interesting description of the 

 variety and account of its origin by the Rev. Peter Whitney in the 

 Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Volume I. 



" There is now growing, in an orchard lately belonging to my honoured 

 father, the Reverend Aaron Whitney, of Petersham, deceased, an apple tree 

 very singular with respect to its fruit. The apples are fair, and when fully 

 ripe, of a yellow colour, but evidently of different tastes — sour and sweet. 

 The part which is sour is not very tart, nor the other very sweet. Two 

 apples, growing side by side on the same limb, will be often of these different 

 tastes ; the one all sour, and the other all sweet. And, which is more remark- 

 able, the same apple will frequently be sour one side, end, or part, and the 

 other sweet, and that not in any order or uniformity; nor is there any differ- 

 ence in the appearance of one part from the other. And as to the quantity', 

 some have more of the acid and less of the sweet, and so z'ice versa. Neither 

 are the apples, so different in their tastes, peculiar to any particular branches, 

 but are found promiscuously, on every branch of the tree. The tree stands 

 almost in the midst of a large orchard, in a rich and strong soil, and was trans- 

 planted there forty years ago. There is no appearance of the trunk or any 

 of the branches having been engrafted or inoculated. It w^as a number of 

 3'ears, after it had borne fruit, before these different tastes were noticed; but, 

 since they were first discovered, which is about twenty years, there has been, 

 constantly, the same variety in the apples. For the truth of what I have 

 asserted, I can appeal to many persons of distinction, and of nice tastes, who 

 have travelled a great distance to view the tree, and taste the fruit, but to 

 investigate the cause of an effect, so much out of the common course of nature, 

 must, I think, be attended with difficulty. The only solution that I can con- 

 ceive is, that the corcula. or hearts of two seeds, the one from a sour, the 

 other from a sweet apple, might so incorporate in the ground as to produce 

 but one plant; or that farina from blossoms of those opposite qualities, might 

 pass into and impregnate the same seed. If you should think the account I 

 have given you of this singular apple tree will be acceptable to the American 

 academy, please to communicate it." 



At the time when this account was first published it was cus- 

 tomary in planting to set orchards with seedling trees from some 

 local nursery, as was evidently done in this case, and if cultivated 

 varieties were ever included they were later top-worked upon these 

 seedling trees with which the orchard was first planted. From the 

 account given by Whitney it is probable that the original tree of the 

 Sweet and Sour apple originated in a seedling nursery from which 

 it was transplanted into the orchard of his father where it first 

 attracted attention because of the curious character of its fruit. 



