54 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



THE NEW APPLE CULTURE. 



By Professor S. A. Beach of the New York Experiment Station. 



A comparison of the methods of managing apple 

 orchards which were common fifty or more years ago with 

 those which are now followed by some of the most success- 

 ful fruit growers of the country, shows that newer ideas 

 and methods are winning recognition and are gradually 

 being adopted in those sections where commercial apple 

 orchards are found. 



The management of apple orchards which is based 

 upon the recognition of the newer ideas may well be called 

 the New Apple Culture, in distinction from the kind of 

 orchard management which was generally in vogue a gener- 

 ation or more ago. 



A brief consideration of the development of apple 

 orcharding in this section of the country, will bring out 

 more clearly some of the differences between the old and 

 the new apple culture. The apple, together with other 

 cultivated fruits from the old world, was brought to this 

 cotmtry by the earliest settlers of New England and of 

 other parts of the Atlantic coast, being propagated by 

 them by growing seedlings and to some extent by grafting 

 some of the cultivated Old World kinds. As the settle- 

 ments were extended the apple was taken into the newer 

 regions till it finally was distributed to all parts of the 

 interior. In speaking of the development of apple culture 

 in this part of the country, permit me to refer to it as 

 found in New York State, because I am less familiar with 

 its development in Connecticut. I doubt not, however, that 

 there is much in common in its history in the two States, 

 especially since a great many New Englanders were found 

 among the early immigrants to New York. 



Primitive Orchards. — As the settlements were gradually 

 extended back from the coast, the settlers who overspread 

 the interior of New York State and hewed their farms out 

 of the forest, planted apple seeds around their new homes. 

 The fruit from the seedling trees would now be called 

 "natural" or "seedling" fruit, in distinction from grafted 



