WHENCE COMES THE APPLE-TREE? 63 



immemorial, passes at the end into obscurity. We seem 

 never to reach the ultimate origins or to find an end to our 

 quests. 



There are other apples than the common pomological 

 orchard types. There are the crabs. In general usage, the 

 word "crab" designates an apple that is small, sour and 

 crabbed. Such apples are wildings or seedlings. They are 

 merely depreciated forms of Pyrus Malus, and probably 

 much like the first apples known to man. What are known 

 to horticulturists as crab-apples, however, are other species 

 of Pyrus, of different character and origin. We need not 

 pause with the discussion of them, except to say that the 

 commonest kinds are the little long-stemmed fruits of 

 Pyrus baccata (berry Pyrus), native in eastern Europe and 

 Siberia. These are the "Siberian crabs." The leaves and 

 twigs are smooth, and the calyx falls away from the fruit, 

 leaving a bare blossom end. These little hard handsome 

 fruits are used in the making of conserves. Certain larger 

 crab-apples, in which the blossom end is not clean or bare, 

 as the Transcendent and Hyslop, are probably hybrids be- 

 tween the true crabs and the common apple ; this class pro- 

 vides the main crab-apples of the markets. 



When the settlers came to the country west and south 

 of New England, they found another kind of crab-apples 

 in the woods, truly native. The fruits were hard and sour, 

 but they could be buried to ripen. The trees are much like 

 a thorn-apple, — ^low, spreading, twiggy, thorny; but the 

 pink-white large fragrant flowers are very different. The 

 wild crab-apple was called Pyrus coronaria by Linnaeus, 

 the "garland Pyrus." On the prairies is another species, 

 Pyrus ioensis; it yields a charming double-flowered form, 

 "Bechtel's crab." In the South are other species. In fact. 



