The Apples 



markets grew in popularity. In 1845 the orchard of Robert 

 Pell, in Ulster County, New York, which contained 20,000 pippin 

 trees, yielded a crop which brought in the London market |2i 

 per barrel. The tables of the nobility were supplied with these 

 apples at the astonishing price of a guinea a dozen — forty-two 

 cents apiece! 



And yet, almost within the memory of men now living, the 

 old tree still stood on the edge of the swamp, and men came from 

 far and near — even from over seas — to cut cions from the original 

 Newton pippin tree. 



Here and there in the history of horticulture are other instances 

 where Nature seems to rise superior to her own laws by creating 

 valuable seedling varieties. The "Wealthy" apple was a chance 

 discovery in a Minnesota nursery row. It is the parent of one of 

 the noblest varieties of the Northwest States — a worthy mate 

 for the Newtown pippin. Other sorts of apples have sprung 

 from crosses between known varieties. These are hybrids — 

 seedlings, one of whose parents contributed the pollen that 

 fertilised the flower on another tree. From the seed thus set 

 the new tree comes, different from each parent tree, but having 

 some traits of each. 



In these two ways — by seedlings and by hybrids — new 

 varieties have arisen, and others will come on. But each is 

 uncertain — a problem for the scientist, not the apple grower. 

 To plant seeds for an orchard would be the utmost folly. The 

 quick and sure way to get and keep a good variety is to graft 

 other trees with cions of the desired kind. Fertilising the soil, 

 and thorough tillage, greatly improve the health of a tree, and 

 the quality and size of its fruit. But they do not change a 

 Baldwin into a Greening. It may be possible, however, to produce 

 a superior individual tree, whose characters, perpetuated, give 

 rise to an improved "strain" of the variety. Soil, climate and 

 treatment all emphasise individual differences in trees and in their 

 fruits. There is no law in Nature so inexorable as the law of 

 Constant Variation. 



Our little hard-fleshed, slender-stemmed garden crab apples 

 are an interesting race. The Siberian crab (Malus haccaia), of 

 northern Asia, is the parent species. The larger sorts are prob- 

 ably from crosses of this with Malus Malus in some of its varieties. 



Japan has given us some wonderful flowering apples, small 

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