7G4 



HORTICULTURE 



ing of apples since the first settlement of the country. 

 Early in the last century there ajipears to have been a 

 great abundance of the "fruit; hut in 1821 Thacher de- 

 clared that "it is a remarkable fact that the first 

 planters bequeathed to their posterity a greater number 

 of orchards, in proportion to their population, than are 

 now to be found in the old colony," and he attributes 



HORTICULTURE 



tion and adaptation without our knowing it. By far the 

 greater number of the apples of the older apple-growing 

 regions of the country are indigenous varieties, and the 

 same process is now operating in the Northwest, where 

 the American seedlings of the Russian stock are prov- 

 ing to be more valuable than the original importations. 



'--w \f -' 



1087 

 It s sa 1 that the app es vere p 

 he rock and crushed hj n ea 



rel c of the last century 

 pHoel n the ere lar groove 

 1 we ght roll g o er 

 the farther s de aud 



gin. As early as 1760, cions of Anii'rk-:ni VMriclirs wire 

 sent to England. Before the ReVMlui i'.n, a|ipli - were 

 exported. The origination of indigiimu.. \:ni.ii.'^ was 



of course, an accidental one, and was :i ii ^saiy nsult 



of the universal iiictli.Ml .>f growing apple trees directly 

 from seeds, and tn]i i;ratting them in case they should 

 turnout j.roiitlrss. A critical study of American Horti- 

 culture will show tliat all species of plants which have 

 been widely cultivated iu this country have gradually 

 run into indigenous varieties, and the whole body of our 

 domesticated flora has undergone a progressive evolu- 



Pears were among t the earliest fru ts ntroduced into 

 the New Worl 1 ai 1 the French part cularly d ssemi 

 nate 1 them far and de along the waterwajs as wit 

 nessed by the patriarchal trees of the Detroit river and 

 portions of the Jlississippi system. John Bartram's 

 Petre pear (Fig. lOSD) is one of the patriarchs of the 

 last century, although the tree is not large. The first 

 book devoted exclusively to the pear was Field's, pub- 

 lished in 1859. The Japanese type of pears had been 

 brought into the country from two and perhaps three 

 separate introductions, early in the fifties, but they had 

 not gained sufficient prominence to attract Field's atten- 

 tion. From this oriental stock has come a race of prom- 

 ising hybrids with the common pear, represented chiefly 

 by the Kieffer, Le Conte and Gar- 



ber 



Pea I es were early introduced 

 t tie New World by \ariou8 

 lilt and they thrived so well 



1086, Dufour's picture of Grape t 

 Patterned after the South-European fashion of emplo 



peaches, giving rise to the Craw- 

 fords and their derivatives. 



Of late years there has been a 

 contraction of the original peach 

 areas, and many good people have 

 thought that the climate is grow- 

 ing uncongenial, but it is only the 

 natural result of the civilization of 

 tlie country and the change in 

 methods of Horticulture. Peaches 

 had never been an industry, but 

 the orchards were planted here and 

 there as very minor appendages to 



