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    The Apple - With Chapters on Propagation, Grafting and General Pruning
    The Apple - With Chapters on Propagation, Grafting and General Pruning
    The Apple - With Chapters on Propagation, Grafting and General Pruning
    Ebook173 pages3 hours

    The Apple - With Chapters on Propagation, Grafting and General Pruning

    By R. Lewis Castle

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    About this ebook

    This vintage book contains a detailed treatise on the apple, being a detailed and comprehensive guide to growing, harvesting, and marketing apples. This accessible and profusely illustrated guide will be of considerable utility to the modern reader with an interest in apple production, and it will also appeal to collectors of antiquarian literature of this ilk. Although old, the information contained within this text is timeless, and will be of as much value to modern readers, as it was when first published. The chapters of this text include: 'Inter-pollination and Fertility', 'Culture', 'Soil', 'Trees', 'General Pruning and Training', 'The Crop', 'Propagation and Grafting', 'Diseases', 'Apples for Market', 'Select Apples', and 'Selections for Special Purposes'. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern edition complete with a specially commissioned introduction on preserving food.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateMay 31, 2013
    ISBN9781473382008
    The Apple - With Chapters on Propagation, Grafting and General Pruning

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      The Apple - With Chapters on Propagation, Grafting and General Pruning - R. Lewis Castle

      THE APPLE

      The Apple takes first rank amongst the more important hardy fruits cultivated in the United Kingdom, and owes its high position to many valuable qualities. In hardiness it is unsurpassed, for, as regards the larger number of varieties in British gardens, it is rare that the lowest temperature experienced ever affects the trees themselves to any serious extent. In very low situations, and in seasons when the minimum temperatures have fallen to near the zero of the Fahrenheit scale, we have known occasional instances of bark injury resulting, but this has been confined to a few varieties and generally to trees on unsuitable stocks. Even in the spring, frosts seldom damage the young foliage, though unfortunately we have not yet secured a race of Apples with flowers that can resist frost.

      The Apple can be grown with a fair measure of success over a greater area of our country, and in a greater variety of soils and situations, than any other fruit, but its best qualities and fullest capabilities are only developed under special circumstances of soil and climate.

      Then, too, the season during which the fruits can be had for use extends throughout the whole year, no other fruit being so easily kept in a fresh state for six to nine months, and at the same time retaining all its characteristic properties.

      Though the Apple in its different forms does not present such a variety of rich aromatic flavours as the Pear, yet there is a wide range of variation in degrees of sweetness and acidity, as well as in flavour and other characters. In appearance the Apple is unequalled in form and colour variations, which alone would render the fruit an interesting and delightful study.

      From a utilitarian or commercial point of view also the Apple is highly important. The rapidly-extending and well-founded appreciation of the fruit as an essential part of the food of the people, has led to an enormous increase in its cultivation in temperate climates, and there appears to be every probability that for many years to come this extension will be continued. The safety with which the fruit can be packed and transported long distances by road, rail, or sea, has aided the advance in this respect, and increased facilities in the future will still further help in the same direction.

      In seasons of great abundance drying Apples for home use or export has become a great part of the fruit-preserving industry in America. It has also been tried here when prices were very low and the markets glutted, but as a rule the demand for fresh Apples is sufficient to render this method unnecessary. The usual form in which the dried fruits are stored or sold is that of Apple rings, which retain the flavour well and are readily prepared for use.

      Several machines are in use for the purpose of paring, coring, slicing, and drying or evaporating Apples, and serviceable forms which have been tried in Great Britain, as well as on the Continent and in the United States, are shown in the illustrations figs. 18 and 19. Mayfarth’s Apple parer, corer, and slicer is a simply constructed appliance which can be readily affixed to the edge of a table or bench, the operations of removing the peel and core being effected in succession after the fruit is placed in position, by turning a handle at the side, the slicing being then performed by another simple action. The fruit is then sulphured or dipped in salt and water, and is ready at once for the drying-machine. Mayfarth’s American Evaporator (fig. 19) has been subjected to several trials in England, notably at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Gardens, Chiswick, and has given satisfactory results both in efficiency and economy of fuel when carefully managed. It consists of a stove and a series of trays upon which the Apple rings are arranged, and through which hot air is passed until desiccation is sufficiently effected to ensure the keeping of the fruit when properly stored.

      Fig. 18.—Mayfarth’s Apple Parer, Corer, and Slicer.

      Fig. 19.—American Evaporator.

      Another form of evaporator, the Geisenheim Fruit and Vegetable Drier, was employed in the Royal Agricultural Society’s demonstrations at Leicester a few years ago, and the same machine has been used at the Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm. In this the principle is similar to that in the Mayfarth Evaporator, but the trays are arranged immediately above a hot-air chamber.

      The utilization of Apples for the production of jelly on a commercial basis is extending, and several flourishing enterprises have been started for this purpose in recent years. There is also a partial revival of cider manufacture in some districts. Greater attention is being paid to the matter, improved systems are in operation, the cider is presented to the consumer in a more pleasing form, and the better brands are decidedly superior to many of the cheap foreign wines.

      In short, the Apple merits all the attention that can be accorded to it, whether it be grown simply for home consumption or for general commercial purposes, and we purpose in the course of this chapter to review the aspects of the subject which most concern the cultivator generally.

      EVOLUTION AND IMPROVEMENT

      Evolution of the Apple.—The origin of the innumerable varieties of cultivated Apples is attributed to the Common Crab—Pyrus Malus (fig. 20)—still found wild in many districts of Great Britain, and having a wide distribution throughout the temperate countries of Europe and part of Asia. There is evidence that it has been used as food and cultivated by man for upwards of four thousand years, and specimens of the dried or carbonized fruits have been found in the lake dwellings of central Europe dating from prehistoric times. Where the first varieties and the first cultivation commenced is not known, but the evolution of the Apple as we know it has been a long and gradual process. The wild Crab of our hedgerows does not vary so much in its fruits as it does in its habit and vigour of growth, though in some districts in England a distinction is made by the country people between Crabs and Crab-Apples, the latter being regarded as a larger type. Some differences of this kind are, however, no doubt due to accidental advantages of soil or situation. In raising seedlings for stocks from the Crabs gathered in the hedgerows it is remarkable what surprising diversities of growth are obtained, indicating the capacity for variation which exists in the plant. The average size of the wild fruits found at the present time in Great Britain is from 1 inch to 1 1/4 inches in diameter, and this does not differ materially from the size of the Apples found amongst the remains of the Swiss lake dwellings. We have seen a marked improvement in the fruit of the Crab in one generation, from the seed of a wild type, when grown under favourable conditions. There is no doubt that we owe the greater number of the finely developed and varied Apples of the present time to selection, at first slow, but considerably accelerated within the past two hundred years by the increased number of breeders and cultivators.

      Fig. 20.—Crab Apple (Pyrus Malus). (1/2.)

      Until grafting and budding became the general method of propagation for the Apple the usual means was by seed. At the present time there are thousands of old seedling Apples scattered about the country which originated in this way, many of which have been perpetuated locally. Some of these are good and distinct, but the majority are either worthless or not superior to others in general cultivation.

      A glance at the list of old varieties will show that nearly all, to within recent times, were practically chance seedlings of unknown origin. It has been claimed that the Api or Lady Apple, now so much grown in America, and frequently seen in London shops in neat little boxes, is the oldest Apple in cultivation, as it is believed to have been known to the Romans. Continental pomologists dispute this, however, and state that it was found as a wilding in the forest of Api in Brittany, and that it was so recorded early in the seventeenth century. The Old English Pearmain was regarded by the late Dr. Hogg as the oldest English Apple on record, as it was cultivated in Norfolk before the year 1200, though nothing is known of its origin. The Costard was probably contemporaneous, as it was known before 1292. Next amongst the ancient Apples must be placed the London Pippin, which was in cultivation prior to 1580, while in the seventeenth century the best known were Catshead, English Codlin, Golden Pippin, Golden Reinette, Joanneting, Pomewater, Summer Pearmain, and Winter Quoining, concerning the origin of which nothing whatever is known, though they were all doubtless seedlings selected for their marked characters. Some of them are still grown in gardens, and there are many other well-known Apples which have come to us in a similar way, such, for instance, as Ribston Pippin, Blenheim Pippin, Dumelow’s Seedling, and Devonshire Quarrenden, which have no recorded parentage, while Claygate Pearmain is said to have been found in a hedge, Keswick Codlin on a rubbish heap, and Cornish Gilliflower in a cottager’s garden. In some cases the name of the seed parent is known, as for example, Cox’s Orange Pippin is from Ribston Pippin, Worcester Pearmain from Devonshire Quarrenden, and Waltham Abbey Seedling from Golden Noble. Many more could be given, but these will suffice to illustrate that the advance of the Apple has been largely due to chance seedlings and selection.

      Systematic Improvement of the Apple.—Raising seedlings, even from varieties of proved merit, is an uncertain task; the prizes are few and the blanks many. We cannot rely upon perpetuating any good qualities the parent tree may possess, but we can be sure of having a large proportion of seedlings that are utterly worthless. It is slow and unsatisfactory work, and the improvement of so valuable a fruit as the Apple deserves more

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