Pollination and Fruit Setting 



in the Apple 



By L. p. LATIMER 



Pollination has come to be a general problem in our New England 

 orchards in recent years due to the fact that fewer varieties of apples are 

 now planted in a given orchard than was the case a quarter of a century or 

 more ago. 



I. Development of Orcharding and the 

 Pollination Problem 



The earliest settlers in America brought apple seeds from Europe and 

 planted them here. As time went on more seedlings were developed and 

 occasionally plants of a named variety were imported from Europe. Later 

 the special merits of certain seedlings were appreciated and grafts made 

 from them to perpetuate the type. Thus different settlers and their descend- 

 ants in the new world developed fruit gardens containing several to many 

 trees of quite different types. 



In those days wild bees, including bumble bees, were also plentiful and 

 well able to carry all the pollen needed for pollination of self-sterile varie- 

 ties which, then as today, would not set fruit when pollenized with their 

 own pollen. 



The result was that in those early times the large mixture of varieties and 

 plentifulness of wild bees in proportion to the size of planting led to no 

 difficulties of set as are experienced today. Hence no problem of pollination 

 became apparent. 



Up to the middle of the 18th century, commercial orchards as we now 

 know them had not been definitely established in America. Grafted trees 

 were planted before this time, but plantings of "common" or "cider" apples 

 still predominated. 



The rapid growth of New York City, and its importance as a seaport, 

 resulted in a large market and outlet for American apples. Boston was a 

 similar center. During the last quarter of the 18th century, considerable 

 trans-Atlantic shipments of apples were made. 



The Newton Pippins (green and yellow) had l)y this time come to be 

 known as America's highest-quality apple. Its popularity on the continent 

 followed the receipt of a box by Benjamin Franklin in London in 1758. The 

 increasing tendency since then has been to plant only those varieties which 

 seemed most profitable in large centers of population and in foreign trade. 

 This resulted in the development of the truly commercial orchard where 

 only grafted and budded varieties of proven merit were planted. 



At first the list of such varieties was rather large, because of the various 

 tastes and demands of consumers who were still used to the products of the 



