SECTION XXI 



Pip Fruits: Apples, Pears, Quinces, 



Medlars 



APPLES 



i. GENERAL 



The Apple is far and away the most important of hardy fruits grown 

 by market gardeners in the British Islands. Originally springing from 

 the Wild Crab Apple (Pyrus Mains), fig. 329, it has undergone such a 

 transformation in the course of centuries of cultivation and selection that 

 the many excellent varieties 

 now known bear but very 

 little resemblance to their wild 

 progenitor except in mere out- 

 line. The fruits of the Wild 

 Crab Apple are 1 in. or a little 

 more in diameter, yellowish 

 when ripe, and bitterly sour 

 in flavour. The leaves are 1 

 to 2 in. long, oblong-rounded 

 in shape, tapering at the apex, 

 and irregularly toothed on the 

 margins; and the umbels of 

 pink-and-white flowers usu- 

 ally appear in May. 



Being distributed in a wild 

 state throughout the tem- 

 perate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, it is natural that a good deal 

 of variation should exist, and to this circumstance is probably due the fact 

 that in the hands of the gardener the Crab Apple has lent itself so readily 

 to modification and improvement. For generations such improvements as 

 took place were purely accidental, the result of chance seedlings, and 

 the history of some of the oldest known varieties is lost in obscurity. 



57 



Fig. 329. Crab Apple (Pyrus Mahis). (J.) 



