SOMETHING ABOUT THE APPLE TREE. 



'Little Apple-blossom, when a baby small, 

 In a tiny crimson cap peeped out first of all. 

 Older grown, she used to wear a snowy satin gown, 

 Trimmed with ribbons pale and pink, running up and down. 

 All her pretty finery she has laid away; 

 You will find her, if you hunt, in her workday dress, 

 Making you an Apple for next winter-time, I guess." 



The Apple Tree has been cultivated for 

 ages. It was introduced into the gar- 

 dens of Rome at least four hundred and 

 fifty years before the Christian era. 

 There it was a luxury and only 

 grown in the grounds of the 

 wealthy. Pliny, writing in the first 

 century, speaks of the apple as being a 

 profitable crop because of the small num- 

 ber of trees in the vicinity of Rome. He 

 also speaks of twenty-two varieties which 

 were known to the Romans. Grafting 

 was understood and practiced in those 

 early days. Writing of this art, Pliny 

 speaks of several varieties of fruits, 

 some of which are apples, which "have 

 conferred everlasting remembrance on 

 those who were the first to introduce 

 them, as having rendered some service to 

 their fellow-men." He also adds : 

 ''Unless I am very much mistaken, an 

 enumeration of them will tend to throw 

 some light upon the ingenuity that is 

 displayed in the art of grafting, and it 

 will be more easily understood that there 

 is nothing so trifling in itself from which 

 a certain amount of celebrity cannot be 

 insured." 



In the time of Virgil, apples were evi- 

 dently quite common, for the poet speaks 

 of them in the First Eclogue, where Tity- 

 rus says to Meliboeus : 



Stay with me to-night, for I have ripe Apples, 

 soft chestnuts, and plenty of cheese. 



It is evident that the apple was well 

 known and extensively used as a food in 

 very early times by the lake-dwellers of 

 Switzerland. It was preserved by slic- 

 ing the fruit and drying it in the sun. 

 In fact, charred remains of apples are 

 found in their prehistoric dwellings. 



The A]>ple Tree is a native of south- 

 western Asia and the adjacent portion of 

 Europe. It was probably introduced into 

 Great Britain at the time of the Roman 



occupation. It was brought by the Euro- 

 pean colonists to northeastern America. 

 From that region it was gradually intro- 

 duced into territories farther west and 

 south. Johnny Appleseed, whose real 

 name was Jonathan Chapman, may be 

 considered the pioneer of apple culture in 

 western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indi- 

 ana. He was born in Boston in 1775 and 

 he died in 1847. He gathered sack after 

 sack of apple seeds from the pomace of 

 cider mills and between the years 1801 

 and 1847 ^^ planted the seeds wherever 

 he found a clearing. He was an eccen- 

 tric character, and it is said that for over 

 forty years he roamed bare-footed 

 through the wilderness, and was never 

 harmed by either animals or Indians. His 

 love of nature was so strong that he 

 would never kill an animal or prune a 

 tree. To him the changing of the 

 natural fruit of a tree by grafting was an 

 inexcusable wickedness. He was favored 

 with a life of sufficient length to see apple 

 trees bearing fruit throughout an area 

 consisting of over 100,000 acres. 



The common apples are derived from 

 the species Pyrus malus, and the crab- 

 apples are from Pyrus hacceata (Sibe- 

 rian crab). Pyrus malus is a low sym- 

 metrical tree with thick and fuzzy leaves 

 and compact clusters of flowers. It is 

 estimated that there are actually on sale 

 in the markets of North America not far 

 from one thousand varieties of apples, 

 and that in the whole world about two 

 thousand varieties are known. This 

 large number is due to the fact that the 

 a])plc may be propagated from seeds and 

 sporting freely, new varieties are con- 

 stantly produced. 



In this country during earlier days, the 

 apple was chiefly prized for the produc- 

 tion of cider. Because of the belief that 

 any apple was good enough for cider, its 



