New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 297 
the year 1883. Each year additions were made to this collection 
and by 1900 it consisted of over 700 named varieties of apples and 
crabapples. This report, however, contains not only the records of 
these various varieties as tested at the Station, but is combined with 
a mass of information secured by looking up all the available works 
on the subject of apple growing with particular reference to the 
value of the different varieties, and also information secured vy 
correspondence with a large number of growers throughout the State 
and with a smaller number outside the State. In addition ac- 
knowledgment is made of assistance of professional associates out- 
side the Station. 
The work is divided into two volumes, the first including the in- 
troduction and the descriptions of the winter varieties of apples, the 
second including summer and fall varieties. The division between 
the two classes is made at the season of the Tompkins King, all 
those of the same season and later going into the first volume and 
all of the earlier ones going into the Second volume. The intro- 
duction contains first a brief discussion of the apple from the 
botanical standpoint. The apple is stated to be indigenous to 
the old world but with American relatives, our native crabapples. 
Three species of North American crabs are given and it is said 
that in the case of one of them hybrids have been produced with the 
common apple. The others are sometimes used for preserves but 
are of no importance in cultivation. The hybrids referred to are 
considered valuable by us, only in the kitchen or for cider. The 
native home of the apple is not definitely settled. De Candolle, a 
French botanist, who has devoted more attention than anyone else 
to study of the origins of cultivated fruits, and who is generally 
accepted as an authority, concludes that it is probably indigenous 
to the region south of the Caucasus but that it has existed in Europe 
in both the wild and cultivated form since prehistoric times. 
A history is given of the cultivation of the apple in New York 
State. It seems that the earliest settlers planted apple trees and, the 
region being well adapted to them, these thrived. “In fact, apple 
culture was carried by Indians, traders and white missionaries far 
into the wilderness beyond the outermost white settlement.” Apple 
orchards were found, and in some cases remnants still exist, around 
the sites of the old Indian towns. Most of the trees in the earlier 
plantings were seedlings, and while it is certain these earlier orchards 
did not bear the uniformly high-class fruit that we secure to-day, 
they were of great advantage in that the best of these seedlings were, 
