CHAPTER XXII. 



The Apple. 



HAVING spent the last thirty years of my life on the im- 

 mediate Gulf coast, my experience with apples is nec- 

 essarily limited, and as a book on horticulture would 

 not be complete without a notice of this best of all fruits, I 

 append on that subject a most excellent article from the 

 Southern States, by Prof. M. B. Hilliard, of the Louisiana Ex- 

 periment Station. He is known as an authority on horticul- 

 ture in the far South, and his suggestions are well worth the 

 careful attention of all fruit growers. There is no doubt that 

 the apple as a money maker has been very greatly overlooked 

 in the southern states, even when grown from long-rooted 

 trees, which in our hot climate tends greatly to dwarf them, 

 by compelling them to take on a surface system of roots, in- 

 stead of penetrating deeply, which they would do if their 

 roots were closely pruned. That this is true is clearly shown 

 by the two very large apple trees now growing near Hitch- 

 cock, Galveston Co., on Mr. H. Perthuis' old place. Those 

 trees were a great puzzle for several years, and induced me 

 to plant two hundred apple trees at the same time I planted 

 my pear orchard. While that variety is not suited to this 

 locality, as far as productiveness is concerned (nor is it prob- 

 able that any apple would pay on the Gulf coast), still those 

 two trees clearly show that if planted right, the apple will 

 make a large tree even here. Those two trees are now about 

 twenty years old, and their history, as given by Mr. Perthuis, 

 is as follows : 



During a visit to Houston he saw a thrifty young apple 

 tree in the yard of a friend, and when about to return he cut 

 off a shoot with the intention of grafting several quince trees 

 on his place at Hitchcock. On reaching home he cut the 

 shoot in half and stuck the two pieces into the ground for a 



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