APPLES 



The Apple takes first rank amongst the hardy fruits culti- 

 vated in the British Islands. The innumerable varieties in 

 cultivation are all descendants from the wild Crab-Apple, 

 Pyrus Malus. There is evidence that Apples have been 

 used as food by man for upwards of four thousand years; 

 the evolution of the cultivated forms has therefore been a 

 long and gradual process; but we owe the best of them to 

 selection and cross-breeding within the last two hundred 

 years. Until grafting became the general method of propa- 

 gation, seeds were the usual means, and there are con- 

 sequently an almost countless number of seedlings, differing 

 from each other, which had their origin in this way. The 

 majority of such seedlings are worthless and should be re- 

 placed by varieties of recognized merit. Seedlings raised 

 from the pips of the very best Apples rarely possess the 

 good qualities of the parent; on the contrary, most of them 

 prove worthless. There are said to be about two thousand 

 named sorts of Apples in cultivation. 



