No. 7. 



Geography and History of the Apple. 



211 



ing underneath, or perhap.^ things in the cel- 

 lar, which are often put under porticos. It 

 is desirable to know some cheap material, 

 which, if put on the board floor, would answer 

 the object desired — imperviousness to water 

 as well as durability'. Many substances have 

 been suggested, yet not free from objections. 

 Muslin or canvass spread over and well 

 painted; — this, however, is considered too 

 temporary. Tin or zinc have been suggested, 

 but these would be too expensive when a 

 large surface was to be covered, while at 

 the same time they would be no effectual 

 protection. Is there any form of caoutchouc 

 that would answer the objects desired 7 If 

 not, what else"! Will the chemist or the 

 scientific give the information, for which 

 many will be grateful 1 



A Farmer. 



Chester co., January 25th, 1848. 



Geography and History of the Apple. 



The Pyrus malus, or some of its varieties, 

 grows spontaneously in almost every part of 

 the northern hemisphere, except in the tor- 

 rid and frigid zones, and some of the islands 

 in the ocean. It is found throughout west- 

 ern Asia, China, Japan, North America, and 

 in the north of Europe, as far as West Fin- 

 land, in latitude 62°; in Sweden, in latitude 

 58° or 59°; and central Russia, to •55'' or 

 60°. The crab of Europe, however, is want- 

 ing in Siberia, where its place is abundantly 

 supplied by the P. m. prunifolia, and the P. 

 m. baccata. In Britain, Ireland, and North 

 America, the common apple-tree occurs wild, 

 in hedges, and on the margins of woods. It 

 is cultivated for its fruit, both in the tempe- 

 rate and transition zones of both hemispheres, 

 even in the southern parts of India, on the 

 Himalayas, and in China and Japan. 



That the apple tree is a native of the east- 

 ern part of the world, we have the authority 

 of the earliest writers in "Holy Writ," as 

 well as of the naturalists of ancient Greece 

 and Rome. The prophet Joel, where he de- 

 clares the destruction of the products of the 

 earth, by a long drought, mentions the fruits 

 which were held in high estimation, and 

 among thom, he names the apple, 



"The vine is dried up, and the fig tree lan<ruisheth; 

 the pomegranate-tree, the paliii-lree. also, and the ap 

 pie-tree, even all the trees of the field are withered."— 

 Joeli. 12. 



Apples are also mentioned by Theophras- 

 tus, Herodotus, and Columella; and the 

 Greeks, according to Pliny, called tliem 

 Medico, after the country whence they were 

 first brought, in ancient times; but others 

 conjecture that the term "Medica," was 



more probably applied to the citron and the 

 peach, both of which are supposed to have 

 been introduced from Media into Greece. 

 That the Epirolica, from Epirus, were what 

 we call apples, there can be no doubt; as 

 they are described by Pliny, as a fruit with 

 a tender skin, that can easily be pared off; 

 and besides, he mentions "crabs," and " wild- 

 ings," as being smaller, "and for their harsh 

 sourness they have many a foul word given 

 them." The cultivated apple, however, pro- 

 bably was not very abundant at Rome, in 

 his time; for he states that, "there were 

 some trees in the villas near the city, which 

 yielded more profit than a small farm, and 

 which brought about the invention of graft- 

 ing." "There are apples," continues he, 

 " that have ennobled the countries from 

 which they came; and our best varieties 

 will honour their first grafters forever; such. 

 as took their names from Matius, Cestius, 

 Manlius, and Claudius." He particularizes 

 the "quince apples," that came from a 

 quince grafted upon an apple stock, which 

 smelled like the quince, and were called 

 Appiana, after Appius, of the house of Clau- 

 dius. It must be confessed, however, that 

 Pliny has related so many particulars as 

 facts, concerning the apple — such as chang- 

 ing the fruit to the colour of blood, by graft- 

 ing it on the mulberry; and the tree in 

 the Tyburtines country, "grafted and laden 

 with all manner of fruits," which are re- 

 garded by modern grafters as physiological 

 impossibilities, — it would seem that very 

 little confidence could be placed in his state- 

 ments of any kind. But what reason have 

 we to doubt the authority of a man, whose 

 life was spent to the benefit of mankind, and 

 whose death was caused by his perseverance 

 in search of truth? Instances of grafting 

 trees of different families upon one another, 

 are also mentioned by other old authors, and 

 even our Evelyn, of more recent times, 

 states that he saw, in Holland, a rose en- 

 grafted upon the orange. Columella, a prac- 

 tical husbandman, who wrote some years 

 before Pliny, describes three methods of 

 grafting, as handed down to him, by whom 

 he calls the "ancients," besides a fourth 

 method of his own, and a mode of inarching, 

 or grafting by approach, "whereby all sorts 

 of grafts may be grafted upon all sorts of 

 trees." It would appear, however, that the 

 art of grafting, at the period in which he 

 flourished, was comparatively a modern in- 

 vention, as it is not mentioned by Moses, in 

 his directions to the Israelites when they 



>.***** ghall come into the land, and shall 

 have plaTited all manner of trees;" 



neither by Hesiod nor Homer, although 



