WILD CRABS 21 1 



fruits, [f the quince is a valuable culinary fruit, the 

 better varieties of the wild American crab are worthy 

 a place in the garden and orchard for the same 

 purposes. The ••rah is much the hardier, handsomer 

 tree, and subjecl to much fewer ills than the quince, 

 and is usually enormously productive of its peculiar 

 austere fruit. The wild crab ripens its fruit from 

 early autumn until the following summer. The old 

 practice in pioneer times was to bury the hard fruil in 

 the soil late in autumn and so leave it until spring, 

 when it would open out a fine golden yellow. 



"In its wild slate, this crab is a variable fruit in 

 si/-\ color, flavor, shape and time of ripening. I have 

 seen trees of it growing wild, with fruits averaging 

 fully two inches in diameter. The fruil of the Soulard 

 runs from one ami a-halfto two inches. The frnit 

 of it is generally round, somewhat flattened, averaging 

 aboul an inch in diameter, though often larger or 

 smaller. It is rarely oblong, sometimes pyriform, ami 

 I have seen it (or one of the same type) in one instance 

 with the fruit pyriform, and with a brighl red cheek, 

 growing in the woods miles away from domesticated 

 apples; and I have heard of two other like instances. 

 The better varieties of our wild crab should he a frnit 



of value in the tar north, above the line where the 



common apple cao be Bafelj grown. Ami there is no 

 doubt, from it-- natural variability, that a fruit of con- 

 siderable value eoidd be produced from it for culinarj 

 purposes. The pioneers had little age for it. Bimply t 

 because sugar in those days cost money, and monej 



at times was not to be had." 



The Fluke crab i- another of these hybrids, from 

 Iowa, with fruits as large a- those of 'he Mathews. 



