November 22, 1894. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
— - _. 
mi 
CAUSES OF APPLE FAILURES 
A LITTLE REVIEW. 
• S/ 
I AM obliged to Mr. J. Hiam for his references on page 449. He 
observed I did not attribute the many failures in Apple crops 
this year exclusively to the frost of May. Well aware am I of 
the loss resulting from starvation—soil too dry, as after a scorch¬ 
ing summer like that of 1893, also of barrenness through years of 
soil exhaustion by ancient trees. That is why I mentioned the 
alternative cause of the scarcity of Apples. Ic appears to have 
been the chief cause in Mr. Hiam’s case, and it may be in some 
others. While admitting this, as I do most readily, and even 
hoping it may be so to a large extent, it is not the less true that 
in hundreds of gardens this year Pear trees were overladen with 
fruit, while Apple trees grown under precisely similar conditions 
were disappointingly bare. If this were the case in even half the 
gardens there might be occasion to doubt that the frost of May was 
the chief cause of appleless trees, but when we find the facts 
represented in a ten-to-one ratio—ten well cropped Pear trees to 
one well laden Apple tree—we are compelled, I think, to look for 
the cause rather more above the soil than within it. 
I should only be too glad if the main cause of the Apple 
failure could be traced to want of available food in the soil in the 
form of enriched moisture, because if this should be so future 
losses would be to a material extent preventible, as numbers of 
garden trees at least, if not orchard trees, could be sustained by 
copious supplies of water and liquid manure ; but it is obviously 
beyond the power of cultivators to guard against such an 
admittedly destructive frost as that which destroyed millions of 
Apple blossoms and embryo fruits on the memorable morning of 
the 20th of May—the same frost which ruined thousands of acres 
of Strawberries in Kent and other counties, also wrought such 
havoc with Potatoes. If, perchance, it should be asserted that the 
frost did not destroy these, but they succumbed to impoverished 
soil, it may he desirable to point to a record in the Journal of 
Horticulture (page 489, June 21st) of Mr. Owen Thomas having 
men at work all night the eve of the frost covering 2 acres of 
Strawberries with litter, and thus securing a valuable crop of 
fruit, while both Strawberries and Potatoes that could not be 
covered were ruined. Apart from that, however, it is beyond the 
realm of reasonable argument that this disastrous May frost did 
not ruin our crops, nationally speaking, of Pears, for these have 
never been so abundant as during the present year. To assert, as 
a correspondent on page 444 did, that Apples and Pears were 
affected by the frost in an “ identical manner ” needs no confuting, 
viewing the matter in a broadly comprehensive and not a small 
local way, for the bountiful supply of one kind and the notoriously 
scant supply of the other place the matter beyond dispute, except 
for the fruitless purpose of mere disputation. 
Pears, as a rule, survived the frost because the fruits were well 
set and swelling when it occurred, and also because of the shelter¬ 
ing leafage, which all know, if they will, is naturally much in 
advance of that of Apples. These latter succumbed because the 
fruit was not set and swelling when the cold wave passed over the 
land, and there were few or no sheltering leaves, for the all- 
sufficient reason that the time had not arrived for their expansion 
to the same extent as the earlier leafing Pears. To talk of the 
“fall of Apples before the frost” is somewhat amusing, for the 
sufficient reason that there were no “Apples” to fall then over 
No. 752.—VoL. XXIX., Third Series. 
nine-tenths of the area of England where the failures were 
practically complete. It is quite true the frost ruptured the 
cuticle of many Pears that were exposed at the extremities of 
the branches and where there were no sheltering leaves, but 
more than enough were left uninjured. 
That insufficient root moisture is prejudicial to the Apple 
yield may be frankly conceded, hut is it not the same with Pears ? 
Why then the abundance of one kind of fruit and the scarcity of 
the other if that was the governing factor ? Want of root moisture 
was certainly not the cause of barren Apple trees everywhere. I 
could adduce an instance of as many varieties of hardy fruits as 
can be found in almost any private collection growing in land that 
is not far removed from a swamp. The water table even in the 
summer of 1893 was not 2 feet from the surface. There could be 
no question of drought there, yet under the best of management 
the Apple trees have been, with trifling exceptions, fruitless this 
season in comparison with Pears, of which the proprietor, like 
many others, had “ more than he knew what to do with.” This is 
a set off against Mr. Hiam’s experience, though one case is as 
accurately represented as the other. 
Yet there is truth in the lesson he teaches, for so far as I have 
seen—and I have been brought into contact with trees in many 
counties—the best crops and certainly the finest fruits were afforded 
by trees in generous soil. These trees did not suffer by the 
drought of last summer, or they could not have made such excellent 
growth as they did ; and as the branches were thinly disposed, 
admitting the greatest possible amount of sun directly to the 
leaves, the wood in consequence was well stored with nutrient 
matter, or, in other words, exceptionally well ripened. All the 
finest Apples and Pears to which it has been my duty to assist in 
awarding prizes at the leading shows this autumn have been grown 
on young adequately supported trees, the wood of which was such 
as competent gardeners delight to see, and which they correctly 
describe as “ thoroughly ripened,”—ripened because the work of 
the season is well finished. 
Without this deposition of organised matter in the wood of 
trees and plants there can be few perfect flowers. This applies to 
Apples, Pears, Vines, Stephanotis, and Chrysanthemums, which 
have been mentioned in a recent discussion. Mr. Pettigrew was 
absolutely right in attributing failures of his Grape crops after wet 
and cold summers to immature wood—if “ wood ” it could be 
called. There is not a Chrysanthemum grower in England who 
has won a 10-guinea cup who could have done so if his plants had 
been grown in the shade, and consequently unmatured. There is 
not a grower of Stephanotis for market in Great Britain who could 
make the flowers pay if the growths of his plants were not properly 
supported and ripened, because otherwise he could only have a 
miserable crop of miserable flowers to sell. Just as a rich store of 
starchy matter is essential to the maturation of seeds and invests 
them with value ; just as a similar deposit is a necessity for the 
issue of the strongest stems and the finest flowers from bulbs, so is 
a similar storage equally essential in the stems of the Stephanotis 
and Chrysanthemum, also the pseudo-bulbs of Orchids, for the 
production of the finest flowers that issue from and are supported 
by those stems. Whether the flowers issue direct from the stems 
on single peduncles, or are borne on young growths that proceed 
from those stems, matters not in the least. The stored matter 
produces the flowers, the flowers in turn (and seed) using up that 
material—extracting it from stem and bulb, causing shrinking 
and shrivelling, as is often too apparent in the pseudo-bulbs of 
Orchids. 
If well stored—ripened—wood of the Vine be microscopically 
examined the starch granules will be found to stand out bold and 
clear. The young growth from such wood will produce those 
sturdy flower clusters which gardeners love to see ; but if, on the 
other hand, soft immature growth of the Vine be similarly 
examined no such granules can be found, and no such flower 
No. 2408 .—Yol. XCI., Old Series. 
