APPLE VARIETIES 229 



The wild haws, of certain sorts, all relatives 

 of the apple, make a beautiful jelly that has a 

 flavor all its own. 



Frequently "wild apple trees" will be found 

 in the woods and many farmers and almost all 

 city folks believe them to be truly wild trees. 

 As a matter of fact they are what the botanist 

 calls "escapes" — meaning that they are forms 

 which have escaped from cultivation. In the 

 woods near my house stands an old gnarled 

 apple tree that has every appearance of being 

 "wild." It is certainly a "part of the pic- 

 ture." As a matter of fact it is wild in the 

 sense that it was never planted by any man. 

 Probably the seed was carried to the woods with 

 the winter store of some small animal, a squir- 

 rel or a mouse, and was lost. In time it ger- 

 minated and formed the tree as we now see it — 

 a wild, worthless seedling. 



New York State, one of the older colonies, 

 early developed a great apple-growing busi- 

 ness, and from the first orchards have come 

 wild seedlings which occupy fence rows and 

 neglected pastures. These of course are, in 

 the botanical sense, European apples for they 

 belong to the same group of plants that were 

 cultivated even by those Swiss lake dwellers 

 many centuries ago. In no sense of the word are 

 they "native," though they may be "wild." 



Among the early apple planters in the Middle 



