The Personalities of Some Early Apples -By John Craig, 



Horticulturist 

 Cornell University 



INTIMATE FACTS THAT THE PLANTER SHOULD KNOW, BUT BOOKS NEVER TELL, CONCERNING SEVEN 

 EARLY APPLES THAT ARE MOST WORTH PLANTING FOR A COMBINATION OF GOOD QUALITIES 



nPHE apple is the great fruit staple of 

 -*- north temperate regions. One writer 

 remarked, very truly: "Foremost always 

 among fruits interesting to an English- 

 man is the apple" — and we can safely extend 

 the limitation to include English-speaking 

 peoples. "The apple is of more use and 

 benefit to the people ... in general 

 than all the other fruits put together." This 

 is equally true of northeastern America. 

 The apple expresses greater variety in color, 

 flavor, and in the uses to which it may be 

 put than any other fruit. There is no reason 

 why every landowner in the Northeast 

 may not have apples the year round, for he 

 can introduce himself in July to fresh apple 

 sauce made from his Yellow Transparent 

 or Livland Raspberry while the last of his 

 crisp Northern Spies of the previous year 

 are still in cold storage. 



The good apple satisfies, but it rarely cloys ; 

 in this respect it stands in sharp contrast 

 to the fruits of the tropics. Incontestable 

 evidence regarding the comparatively small 

 food value of apples may be easily secured 

 from the scores of youthful harvest hands 

 found in orchard regions during the annual 

 picking season. The enormous consump- 

 tion of "meller" and prematurely ripened 

 specimens does not appear to have the 

 faintest cloying effect upon the appetite 

 of those youths as they make their tri-daily 

 appearance at the table. On the contrary, 

 the appetite seems sharpened. Isn't this 

 one of the missions of the apple ? 



The best way to know apples is, of course, 

 through frequent communication. Each 

 variety possesses an individuality. The 

 laborer in the fruit tree nursery soon learns 

 to recognize the kind which sets its roots 

 deeply in the earth. It "digs hard," he says. 

 The tree agent recognizes some varieties 

 because of their puny growth and small 

 stature. He remembers these because his 

 customers object to them. This is unfor- 

 tunate, for weak bodies are characteristic 

 of some of our best kinds, and so it happens 

 that when marked vigor of tree and low 

 quality of fruit are associated we have a 

 combination which may be looked upon as 

 responsible in large measure for the rapid 

 distribution of some of our distinctly mediocre 

 apples. The nurseryman prefers to sell 

 something which brings immediate satis- 

 faction rather than to urge upon the customer 

 a poor tree which he receives with protest 

 and harbors under suspicion. 



The apple picker soon recognizes the varie- 

 ties which fill the barrel quickly, which are 

 easily separated from the holding spur; 

 which must be handled with care to avoid 

 bruising; or which will bear rough treat- 

 ment without showing it immediately. The 

 packer, too, in his intimate association with 

 the skin of varieties gains such an acquain- 

 tance with them that he not only recognizes 



well marked differences of texture as between 

 varieties, but the observant man may detect 

 differences in the same variety attributable to 

 different soils as well as to climatic influence. 



Let us, therefore, make it our business 

 to get acquainted with the personalities of 

 a few early apples that are the best of their 

 season; to know the tree, its likes and dis- 

 likes; to know the fruit, its beauties, defects, 

 and uses; and so shall we learn how to select 

 the one or two varieties that are superlatively 

 adapted to our special needs. 



Early Joe. — My earliest memory of 

 apples and orchards is associated with 

 forays upon the single tree of Early Joe in 

 the home orchard in western Quebec. To 

 my boyish fancy this variety typified all that 

 was delicious and toothsome in an apple. 

 During the wind-fall season in late August 

 and early September, daily personally con- 

 ducted excursions by the small boys of the 

 family made the rounds of the early matur- 

 ing apple trees, and attention was always 

 focused upon Early Joe, although other 

 seasonable kinds were by no means over- 

 looked. 



For certain good reasons Early Joe will 

 always remain an amateur's variety. In 

 order to be generally popular a variety must 

 have vigor, must have certain commercial 

 characteristics, such as productiveness, 

 attractive appearance and carrying quality. 

 The Early Joe is not noted for any of these. 

 The tree is a rather slow, weak grower. 

 This defect is to some extent offset by its 

 early bearing habit, but again it is handi- 



/ 







This ten-year-old Mcintosh in Central New York 

 has borne regular crops for five years 



83 



The comparatively small core of the Mcintosh and 

 Fameuse makes them economical in use 



capped by susceptibility to one of the worst 

 fungus diseases affecting the apple — black 

 spot, or apple scab. This in its most virulent 

 form, dwarfs and distorts the fruit so that 

 it is hardly recognizable, but in these days 

 of spraying such diseases are not absolute 

 hindrances to the cultivation of any variety. 



Early Joe is of Connecticut origin, although 

 its birthplace was in New York, for Connecti- 

 cut furnished the seed and Ontario County, 

 New York, simply the seedbed requisites. It 

 appeared about 1800, and came along with 

 a goodly crop of varieties, for it was of 

 the day and generation of Wagener, Spy, 

 and Primate. These fine varieties appeared 

 in western New York about the same time, 

 and possibly from seed brought from some- 

 where in the same general vicinity. 



While the tree is defective in point of vigor, 

 especially when young, we can certainly 

 enthuse over the qualities of the fruit. Small 

 in size, and not surpassingly attractive, its 

 coat of dull red and russet is nevertheless 

 suggestive of high quality ; the exterior 

 is rather disappointing to the uniniated; 

 yet compensation comes when the interior 

 is reached. The yellow, fine-grained, crisp, 

 yet tender and juicy flesh, with its rich, sub- 

 acid flavor is agreeable, nay more, satisfy- 

 ing to the very core. As a rule there is 

 little core left, and in the case of a boy con- 

 sumer "there ain't no core." 



Give Early Joe warm, gravelly loam, feed 

 it generously, which means not only fertiliz- 

 ing, but cultivating, too; spray it annually, 

 and it will certainly bring pleasure to owner 

 and family, and will also not fail to carry 

 satisfaction to the discriminating buyer. 



Jefferis. — Here is another apple of splen- 

 did quality, very poorly appreciated. It 

 was in Chester County, Pa., that the variety 

 originated with Isaac Jefferis, something 

 more than a half century ago. There is 

 nothing especially distinctive about the 

 character of the tree; simply a typical apple 

 tree, moderately upright when young, later 



