L. H. Bailey

“ Much of man's energy is expended in trying to overcome the diverseness of nature.
Gradually and slowly the flower balloons enlarge and puff themselves up, the petals standing together at their tips; all the variety is united into a harmony of exuberance, color and form; then one day there is a shower of genial rain, a warm sun, birds in the air, bees released, grasses soft and lush, and behold! the apple-tree is in bloom,—a great heavenly mound of white and pink exhaling a faint delicious breath. ”

“ We are so accustomed to the apple-tree as a part of an orchard, where it is trimmed into shape and its bolder irregularities controlled, that we do not think it has beauty when left to itself to grow as it will. An apple-tree that takes its own course, as does a pine-tree or an oak, is looked on as unkempt and unprofitable and as a sorry object in the landscape, advertizing the neglect of the owner. Yet if the apple-tree had never borne good fruit, we should plant it for its bloom and its picturesqueness as we plant a hawthorn or a locust-tree. ”

“ The winter apple-tree in the free is a reassuring object. It has none of the sleekness of many horticultural forms, nor the fragility of peaches, sour cherries and plums. It stands boldly against the sky, with its elbows at all angles and its scaly bark holding the snow. Against evergreens [Pg 14] it shows its ruggedness specially well. It presents forms to attract the artist. Even when gnarly and broken, it does not convey an impression of decrepitude and decay but rather of a hardy old character bearing his burdens. In every winter landscape I look instinctively for the apple-tree. ”

“ There is no apple like the one that comes up fresh from the cellar on a winter night, cool, crisp, solid yet ready. It is the fruit of the home fireside. I often wonder whether one in a hundred of the people know what a really good and timely apple is. ”

“ The apple-worm ruins the crop by killing many of the fruits and by blemishing the remainder. Seldom are there two worms in an apple. They seem to respect each other's hunting-ground. From the worm's point of view and from man's, one is enough.
If man has dominion and if he needs apples, then is he within his rights if he joins issue with the insects. Yet is the insect as interesting for all that. I think we should miss many of the satisfactions of life, and certainly some of the disciplines, if there were no insects. My apple-tree is a great place for a naturalist. ”

“ The polished shiny apples of the fruit-stands are a delusion. The practice of burnishing the fruits produces a most inartistic result, destroying the natural bloom and violating the appearance of a natural apple. It is one thing to clean a fruit if it is soiled (which is seldom the case with boxed or barreled apples) ; it is quite another thing to rub and furbish an apple as if it were a billiard ball or glass marble and not a living object that grew on a tree,—it sets false standards before the children. ”

“ One likes to linger on an apple, to sit by a fireside to eat it, to munch it waiting on a log when there is no hurry, to have another apple with which to invite a friend.
Now I am not thinking of the Ben Davis apple or any of its kind. I do not want to be doomed to one variety of apple, or even to half a dozen kinds, and particularly I do not want a poor one. There are enough good apples, if we can get them. The days of the amateur fruit-growers seem to be passing. At least we do not hear much of them in society or in many of the meetings of horticulturists. ”

“ Even its bark and its gnarly trunk will hold converse with me, and its first tiny leaves of the budding spring will herald me a welcome. Once again I shall be a youth with the apple-tree, but feeling more than the turbulent affection of transient youth can understand. Life does not seem regular and established when there is no apple-tree in the yard and about the buildings, no orchards blooming in the May and laden in the September, no baskets heaped with the crisp smooth fruits ”

“ We must first understand how a wound heals on a tree. Note any wound,—knot-hole on the trunk, place where wood has been removed. The exposed wound itself does not heal; it is covered and inclosed by tissue built out from the edges or periphery of the wound. This tissue is like a roll. It is the callus. Eventually the tissue meets in the center, and the lid is thereby put on the place, and it is sealed. The exposed wood has died, if it is the cross-section of a branch or a deep wound, and it remains under the callus a dead body. ”

“ I am conscious of a slowly moving landscape with people and birds and beasts of burden and windy vegetation, of prospects in which there are no broad smooth farm fields with fences dividing them, of scenery full of herbage, in which every lineament and action incite me and stimulate my desire for more, of days that end suddenly in the blackness of night. ”

“ Had we not traced the sequence, no man could tell by appearances that the larva, the pupa and the moth are one and the same animal. They seem to have nothing in common. So is the egg stage as different as the other three, but we are measurably prepared for this epoch, since we know seeds so well; the egg and the seed are analogous. That a moth in the air should come from a crawling worm in an apple is indeed one of the miracles of nature. The worm leaves the apple ere it falls; how the worm knows the time is again a mystery. By some instinct, it is able to cognize a dying apple. ”

“ For the purpose of this little book, however, the interest in the dwarf apple centers not so much in the origin of the stock as in the natural-history of the tree itself and the good skill of hand and heart that one may expend in the growing of it. If one would come close to a plant, knowing it intimately in every season, causing it to respond to sympathetic treatment through a series of years, then a garden collection of dwarf apples may satisfy the desire. It is too bad that we do not have time to cultivate the dwarfs often in the yards and gardens of North America. ”

“ An apple-tree at full bearing is a wonderful sight at the harvest, particularly in such varieties as McIntosh and Baldwin, in which the fruit is highly colored and hangs well toward the outside of the tree-top. While the first bearing year may yield only a half dozen fruits, the crop increases rapidly with the added years,—one peck, one bushel, five bushels, ten bushels, thirty bushels, even to sixty and seventy bushels on large sturdy old trees of some varieties. The amateur, however, first prizes the quality and regularity of his product for the sheer joy of it ”

“ Every observant traveler has noted cases in which good results in the rearing of plants and animals have been attained in places that no one would choose for the purpose: the man has overcome his obstacles. I was impressed with this fact in visiting a greenhouse in the Shetland Islands. Cultivation has been carried far beyond the optimum regions. The merit of the man's performance is measured in the excellence of his result rather than in the quantity of it. The application of skill is the highest test of ability in plant-growing, and this is often expressed in the most difficult places. ”

“ The amateurs in the background, disinterested and unselfish, support appropriations by legislatures for even abstruse public work. The amateur is the embodiment of the best in the common life, the conservator of aspirations, the fulfillment of democratic freedom. I hope pomology will not lag in this respect. In all lines I hope that professionalism will not subjugate the man who follows a subject for the love of it rather than for the gain of it or for the pride of it. In horticulture, when we lose the amateur, who, as the word means, is the lover, we lose the ideals. ”

“ One would expect the best summer and fall apples to come from nearby local orchards, but practically this is not the case because the grower will not allow them to remain on the tree until they are fit. Of course the really ripe apple will not keep long and it does not stand rough handling, but this does not affect the fact that, for eating, an apple should be naturally ripe. In every city, small or large, a good trade can be built up for local ripe hand-picked fruit of the first quality, in competition with the best commercial supply. ”

“ Yet on a good amateur interest in fruits depends, in the end, the real success of commercial fruit-growing. Just now we are trying to increase the consumption of apples, to lead the people to eat an apple a day: it cannot be accomplished by customary commercial methods. To eat an apple a day is a question of affections and emotions.
We have had great riches in our varieties of apples. It has been a vast resource to have a small home plantation of many good varieties, each perfect in its season. ”

“ It is usual to propagate only the best varieties on dwarf stock; the little tree must receive extra care in pruning and in every other way. Its bushel of apples must be choice, every one, to make the effort of growing the tree worth the while. Under European conditions where land is high-priced and labor has been relatively cheap, it is possible (and common) to raise apples on dwarfs for market, as it is profitable to terrace the hillsides with human labor; but in North America the conditions are practically the reverse and the dwarf tree cannot compete with the standard orchard tree. ”

“ There are many kinds of Paradise stock, as also of Doucin. If one were to bring together living plants of all the kinds of natural dwarfs and semi-dwarfs that could be found in nurseries and growing collections, one would undoubtedly find a nearly complete series, so far as stature of tree is concerned, from the very dwarf to the full-sized standard tree. To say that a person is growing grafted dwarf apple-trees does not signify how large the trees may be expected to grow, for one may not know the particular kind of stocks on which the variety is grafted. ”

“ The nature-lover may find much to interest him in the observation of knot-holes as he comes and goes. Every knot-hole has a history; this history usually can be traced by one whose eye is keen and who becomes practiced in connecting cause with final result. One prides oneself on the ability to work out the obscure cases. An old neglected apple orchard thereby affords much entertainment.
If a very large branch breaks off, the remaining part is cut back to fresh hard wood; antiseptic is applied; the other part of the tree may be shortened-in to aid in restoring the proportion or balance. ”

“ Thinning by early-spring removal of fruit-spurs is a very special practice. It is employed on dwarf trees and on those specially trained. It should be undertaken only by a careful and experienced man. It is not to be inferred that the fruit of the apple is all borne on spurs, for some of it may be derived from terminal buds on the new axial growths or even from lateral buds; but the spurs are conspicuous and readily recognized. Of course the ordinary pruning of the tree removes fruit-bearing wood and is therefore a thinning process. ”

“ Monuments have been erected to the Baldwin, Northern Spy, McIntosh and other apples. We should never lose our touch with the origins of men, events, notable achievements, outstanding products of nature.
I fear it is now a habit with many fruit-growers to minimize the interest in varieties, placing the emphasis on tillage, spraying and management of plantations. Yet, the only reason why we expend all the labor is that we may grow a given kind of apple; the variety is the final purpose. ”

“ The better the trees are tilled, pruned and sprayed, the more uniform will be the crop, and particularly if the fruit is thinned on the tree; yet the second-class and even cull apples will be many under ordinary conditions. The purchaser, noting the price of extra-grade apples, may not realize that he buys only the remainder in a long process of grading, extending really over the season or even throughout the life of the orchard. In all this time, the grower has borne the risks of frosts and hail, insect and fungus invasions, lack of help, and disastrously low prices. ”

“ Usually we let the imagination run only to the mature fruit, thinking of the harvest, but in all the weeks before the harvest the apple has been growing and taking form. As these weeks have not been blank to the apple-tree, so shall they not be blank to me. ”

“ If I procure cuttings of a good apple, what shall I do with them that they may give me of their fruitage?
The cuttings will probably be dormant twigs of the last season's growth. They may not be expected to grow when placed in the ground. They are therefore planted in another tree, becoming cions. The case is in no way different in principle from the propagating of the young tree in the nursery, of which we already have learned. The nurseryman works with a small stock, a mere slip of a seedling one or two years old. The grower would better not attempt the making of nursery trees. ”

“ In old hill pastures, in many parts of the North, one sees curious umbrella forms and other shapes of apple-trees, due to browsing by cattle. A little tree gets a start in the pasture. When cattle are turned in, they browse the tender terminal growth. The plant spreads at the base, in a horizontal direction. With the repeated browsing on top, the tree becomes a dense conical mound. Eventually, the leader may get a strong headway, and grows beyond the reach of the browsers. As it rises out of grasp, it sends off its side shoots, forming a head. ”

“ In varieties that mature before winter, the apple is of [Pg 103] best quality when it ripens on the tree and is picked when fit to eat. In this respect it differs from the pear. One reason why store apples are usually poor is because they must be picked long before ripe to stand shipment. In my experience it is most difficult to find a man who will pick apples when ripe; he is usually possessed to pull them green, thinking that if the fruit is full grown and has a red cheek it is therefore ready to be plucked. ”

“ Wormy apples may fall before they are ripe; the worm injury, if it begins early, causes them to ripen prematurely. A premature apple is not a good apple, albeit the small boy relishes it but only because he may get his apple earlier; in the apple season, when ripe fruits are abundant, the boy does not choose the wormy one.
Pick the apple from the tree. It will do you good. It is ever so much better than to pick it from a box on the market or out of a quart-can in the ice-chest. ”

“ More perfect apples are put on the market, in proportion to numbers, than ever before,—carefully grown and graded and handled. I have watched this American development with growing pride. The quantity-production makes for greater perfection of product, but it does not make for variety and human interest, nor for high-quality varieties. We shall still improve it. Masterful men will perfect organizations. The high character and attainment of the commanding fruit-growers, nurserymen and dealers are good augury for the future. ”

“ There are strange fruits in the carts, on the donkeys that move down the hillsides from distant plantations in the heart of the jungle, on the trees by winding road and thatched cottage, in the great crowded markets in the city. ”

“ All summer the process of spore-formation and distribution keeps up. If conditions are favorable, the tree is invaded in foliage and fruit. The flower-stems in the unfolding buds are attacked by the winter-spores and the flower falls. The apples become spotted from the invasion of the summer-spores, perhaps misshapen. Late infections may not show at picking time, but develop on the fruit in storage. The affected leaves are cast in the autumn, the winter-spores begin to form, the snows come and hide the processes, in spring the spores mature; and so does the round of life go on and on. ”