APPLES 
towald a rapid impiovement and bettei 
adaptation to human needs S50 gieat 
have been the changes that to the un 
scientific mind the lowly origin of the 
apple seems incredible 
[The Apple and the Hawthorn 
Botanically the hawthorn choke be111es 
service ber1ies mountain ash c1ab apple 
and the improved vaiieties of apples be 
long to the same family AS a boy in 
West Virginia the wilte:1 saw 100 grafts 
from a seedling apple inserted in haw 
thorn stoch and a few of them grew 
The fact that the. lived shows such 
structural relations as to make 1easonable 
the contention of botanists that they be 
long to the same gioup 
Lhe Apple and the Wild Crab 
There 18 now no question among hol 
ticulturists that the improved varieties 
of apple have come fiom a wild crab 
discovered o1iginally in the forests of 
Europe and the Orient 
When the first settlers came to America 
they found a species of wild crabs giow 
ing in the forests and being used by the 
aborigines for food When these settlers 
crossed the Allegheny mountain range 
and came into the Ohio and Mississippi 
valleys they found it growing there In 
1865 the writer came to Illinois, settled 
on the prairies near the eastern border 
of the state, and found groves of crab 
trees hawthorns, plums and cherries 
scattered along the streams skirting the 
bodies of timber, and in clumps on the 
prairies, sometimes not more than a 
dozen trees in a group, but there they 
were, with every evidence of having 
grown there for a long period before the 
first white settlers came to that country 
How they came to be there no one seemed 
to know, and few cared to inquire The 
original settlers took it as a matter of 
course—the way of nature—and thought 
no more about it than they did of the 
larger forests that skirted the rivers or 
the grass that grew upon the prairie 
However, from these wild fruits they 
made crab apple butter, plum preserves, 
cherry pies and other delicacies that fur 
nished fruit acids much needed as an 
~1 
ot 
aiticle of food and for the piesei:vation 
of health 
Varieties of Crabs 
There aie tour varieties of crab apples 
said to be native to Noith America 
The first is the Common Wild Crab of 
the noitheastein United States and Can 
ada 
The second 1s the Nariow Leaved Crab 
of the middle and southern states 
The third the Piairie States or Soulaid 
Ciab 
The fourth the Oregon Crab 
Of these varieties the Soulard Crab 
is the best Considerable controvers) 
has grown wp as to the origin of the 
Soulard Crab Downing in his ‘Fruit and 
Fruit Trees’ says It o1iginated with 
Antoine Lessieur, Poitage des Sioux, a 
few miles above St Louis’ The Hon 
James G Soulaid of Gibson Illinois in 
troduced it and claimed to be the origi 
nato1 Huis account of its origin is as fol 
lows It originated on a farm about 12 
miles from St Louis Missouri, where 
stood an American crab thichet not en- 
closed near the farm house The thicket 
was cut down and the ground cultivated 
some two or three years Culture being 
discontinued another ciab thicket sprung 
up and when bearing one tree, the iden 
tical of which 1s called the Soulard Crab 
was discoveied The fruit astonished me 
by its 1emarkable size I immediately 
propagated it b3 grafting upon crab 
stoch and seedling apples both stocks 
producing the same fruit” 
Mr Soulard believed it was originated 
by aceidental hybridization with the 
common apple Others believe 1t 1s a nat 
ural variation fiom the crab Not know 
ing the circumstances of this particular 
case we are not able to offer a solution 
of the controvers} but under the laws 
of variation now commonly known it 
might have originated by either of the 
methods claimed It seems to us more 
probable however that 1t originated by 
the natural process of variation from the 
Ollginal stock, cultivation having much 
to do in causing the changes that oc 
curred 
This crab produces apples so nearly in 
