764 



HORTICULTURE 



settlement of the country. 

 iTi- apiiears to have been a 

 I; iMit in 1821 Thacher de- 

 rkalili- fact that the first 



iMi^i.-rity a greater number 



ing of apples since 



Early in tlir l:ist I'cntury tlu'n- a] 



clared tlinl "il is a innarkalili 



of orchards, m proportiou to thcii 



now to be found in the old colon 



the decline in orcharding largely 



of the "poisonous liquor" of the 1; 



inspiration of Thacher, Coxe, KenncK, miir.-, .\iaiiiimg 



and the Downings, orchards were again planted, and wi 



are just now in another period of decline in the East 



following the decay of these plantations 



Apples were cam 1 f i ii t tl fr i t er 1 \ the li 

 dians and probal 1 r 



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. 



the 



api-l 



localities even ( 

 need Jol ) t /) 

 Early H r 

 Rhode I 

 Russet 



had befe i 



In 1817 C \ 111 1 1 1 I 



kinds of the nitst estimable ipj 1 



country and in 18 '5 William Pi 



ties for sale — at J7K cents per ti t 



set aside— after the fashion of the t i le 



adapted to the making of cider Of the 



61 were considered to be of American 



Downings list of apples which had leen 



described in America, had swelled to Ibob 



which 1099 were of k 



great inventory, probably not over a third were actually 



in cultivation at any one time, and very many of them 



are now lost. Yet the apple is still our most important 



fruit, and 878 varieties were actually offered for sale by 



the nurserymen of North America in 1892. 



There has been a most noticeable tendency towards the 

 origination of varieties of apples in this country, and 

 the consequent exclusion of varieties of European ori- 

 gin. As early as 1760, cions of American varieties were 

 sent to England. Before the Revolution, apples were 

 exported. The origination of indigenous varieties was 

 of course, an accidental one, and was a necessary result 

 of the universal method of growing apple trees directly 

 from seeds, and top-grafting them in case they should 

 turn out profitless. A critical study of American Horti- 

 culture will show that all species of plants which have 

 been widely cultivated in this country have gradually 

 run into indigenous varieties, and the whole body of our 

 domesticated flora has undergone a progressive evolu- 



t*l-:?^"«'''; 



I relic of the last century. 

 It is said that the apples were placed in the circular groove 

 in the rock and crushed by means of a weight rolling over 

 them. The juice ran out the gutter at the farther side and 

 was caught in a rock-hewn cistern. 



Pears were amongst the earliest fruits introduced into 

 the New World, and the French, particularly, dissemi- 

 nat.-.l 111. Ill far and wide along the waterways, as wit- 

 ness, ,| \,y ill.' ].airiarchal trees of the Detroit river and 

 porti.iiis .,1 til. Mississippi system. John Bartram's 

 Petrr |..,ir ili-. Iumi) is one of the patriarchs of the 

 last cfutinx, V ■ . i_I, |i,. trr-e is not large. The first 

 book devci. .! •,, tlie pear was Field's, pub- 



lished in Is I I I. sf type of pears had been 



brought int.. ;; i r..iu two and perhaps three 



separate intiu.lu. Ucus, laily in the fifties, but they had 

 not gained suUicient proniiuence to attract Field's atten- 

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

 ising hybrids with the common pear, represented chiefiy 

 by the Kieffer, Le Conte and Gar- 

 ber. 



Peaches were early introduced 

 into the New World by various 

 colonists, and they thrived so well 

 that they soon became spontaneous. 

 Nuttall found them naturalized in 

 the forests of Arkansas in 1819, and 

 the species now grows with all the 

 luxurious abandon of a native in 

 w-astt- and fi.rfst lands from Georgia 

 ami till- <'aniliiias to the westward 

 of the .Mississippi. There is prob- 

 ably no country in the world in 

 which peaches grow and bear so 

 freely as in the United States. The 

 old Spanish or Melocoton type is 

 now the most popular race of 

 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 unoongcnial, but it is only the 

 natural result of the civilization of 

 ry ancl the change in 

 methods of' Horticulture. Peaches 

 bad never been an industry, but 

 the orchards were planted here and 

 there as very minor appendages to 



