388 The Commercial Apple Industry 



two centuries, while the good qualities of the Winesap 

 apple were known as long ago as 1817. Oldenburg 

 (Duchess), the planting of which has become very exten- 

 sive in recent years, is a very old European variety which 

 was introduced in this country as long ago as 1835. 



Yellow Bellflower, one of the leading varieties of Cal- 

 ifornia and well known throughout the country, has been 

 noted for its dessert quality for one hundred years. Stay- 

 man, which is ordinarily classed as new, bore fruit as early 

 as 1875. Grimes was a commercial sort in 1800. Esopus 

 Spitzenburg was grown in the Hudson Valley over a cen- 

 tury ago. The Delicious is about the only variety of 

 recent origin which has grown to great popularity and 

 forced itself on practically all the commercial markets. 



This brief discussion serves to emphasize how hard it is 

 for any variety to become well known in commercial chan- 

 nels without many years of thorough trial and an acquaint- 

 anceship with the public. It further serves to emphasize 

 how really few kinds survive. It is said that approxi- 

 mately 7,000 varieties of apples have been described in 

 pomological publications since 1804. Of these, very few 

 are of commercial importance to-day. This does not pre- 

 clude the possibility of developing new and better kinds, 

 but the commercial grower has found it profitable to limit 

 the number of his varieties and allow others to experiment 

 with new or doubtful ones. 



In every region, from four to six well-known varieties 

 have proved most profitable, and it is the safest plan to 

 select three or four from- this list and plant new varieties 

 only in limited quantities. In the early history of com- 

 mercial apple-growing, it was necessary to experiment with 

 untried varieties since no one knew exactly what ones 



