Crab apple

“ We seem never to reach the ultimate origins or to find an end to our quests.
There are other apples than the common pomological orchard types. There are the crabs. In general usage, the word "crab" designates an apple that is small, sour and crabbed. Such apples are wildings or seedlings. They are merely depreciated forms of Pyrus Malus, and probably much like the first apples known to man. What are known to horticulturists as crab-apples, however, are other species of Pyrus, of different character and origin. ”

“ Of old time, crab-apples were usually planted in or near rickyards or elsewhere close to farmhouses. The custom is now gone out; no crab-apples are planted, and so in course of years there will be but few. Crab-apple is not nearly so plentiful as anciently, either in hedges or enclosures. The juice of the crab-apple, varges, used to be valued as a cure for sprains. The present generation can hardly understand that there was a time when matches were not known. ”

“ Pyrus ioensis.—Crab-apple is a small tree, usually less than five inches in trunk diameter and less than 12 feet high. It grows both in woodlands and in former pastures, but chiefly along the line of contact. After removal of livestock in early 1949, crab-apple spread into the edges of hilltop pastures, from the adjacent protected woodland. Each year thickets of encroaching crab-apple have extended farther into the fields, until, in 1955, there were graded series from the trees along the fence, six feet high or more, to the seedlings 30 to 50 feet out in the fields. ”

“ There is a wild species called the Virginia crab-apple, which bears beautiful pink flowers as fragrant as roses, but its small apples are intensely sour. The blossoms of the cultivated apple tree are more beautiful than those of any other fruit ”

“ The wild crab apple is not a tree to plant by itself in park or garden. Plant it in companies on the edge of woods, or in obscure and ugly fence corners, where there is a background, or where, at least, each tree can lose its individuality in the mass. Now, go away and let them alone. They do not need mulching nor pruning. Let them gang their ain gait, and in a few years you will have a crab-apple thicket. You will also have succeeded in bringing home with these trees something of the spirit of the wild woods where you found them.
—From The Tree Book.
A Ballad of the Corn
By S. H. M. Byers ”

“ The states west of Kansas do not know this lovely wild crab, to which the botanists give a really euphonious designation as Pyrus coronaria. There is a prairie-states crab-apple, which I have never seen, but which, I am told, has nothing like the beauty of our exquisite Eastern native. This Western species lacks the long stem and the bright color of the flowers of our favorite, and its fruits, while quite as viciously sour, are a dull and greasy green. The great West has many other things, but we have the wild crab-apple. ”

“ Thus the finer kinds of apples, if grown from seed, degenerate and become crabs, but in so doing they do not revert to the original wild crab-apple, but become crab states of the varieties to which they belong. ”

“ The tree thrives best in an open situation where it will receive the maximum amount of sunshine and protection from cold winds. The protection is particularly necessary in districts where cold winds and frosts prevail during the flowering season. The wood of the apple tree or the common crab is hard, close-grained, and often richly coloured, and is suitable for turning and cabinet work. The fermented juice (verjuice) of the crab is employed in cookery and medicine. Apples are largely imported into Great Britain from the Continent and the United States and Canada. ”

“ It appears that apples made a part of the food of that unknown primitive people whose traces have lately been found at the bottom of the Swiss lakes, supposed to be older than the foundation of Rome, so old that they had no metallic implements. An entire black and shrivelled Crab-Apple has been recovered from their stores. ”

“ The different varieties of apples have all descended from a species of crab found wild in most parts of Europe. Although there are two or three species of wild crab belonging to this country, yet none of our cultivated varieties have been raised from them, but rather from seeds of the species brought here by the colonists from Europe—over two hundred varieties of apples are known at the present time. As a rule, the Apple is a hardy, slow-growing tree, with an irregular head, rigid branches, roughish bark, and a close-grained wood. It thrives best in limestone soils and deep loams. ”

“ Siberian Crab-Apple Jelly—Mash the crab apples, take off steins and heads, put in pot, cover with water, let them boil to a pulp, then turn them in a flannel bag, and leave all night to strain, then add one pound of sugar to a pint of juice, boil ten to fifteen minutes, skim and put in jelly glasses. ”

“ It is, however, our home fruits, Apples, Pears, Gooseberries, Strawberries, Raspberries, and Currants, that are most important to us in Britain. The Wild Crab Apple is found from Drontheim, in Norway, to the Caucasus, and grows over the whole of Europe. ”

“ I never saw the Crab-Apple till May, 1861. I had heard of it through Michaux, but more modern botanists, so far as I know, have not treated it as of any peculiar importance. Thus it was a half-fabulous tree to me. I contemplated a pilgrimage to the "Glades," a portion of Pennsylvania where it was said to grow to perfection. I thought of sending to a nursery for it, but doubted if they had it, or would distinguish it from European varieties. At last I had occasion to go to Minnesota, and on entering Michigan I began to notice from the cars a tree with handsome rose-colored flowers. ”

“ All apples will not succeed on the same soil, some preferring clay, while others grow best in sandy loam or in well-drained peat. For a deep, good soil and a sheltered situation the standard form grafted on the Crab-apple is generally considered to be the most profitable. For shallow soils it is better to graft on to the Paradise stock, as its roots do not run down so low as the Crab. The ground, whether deep or shallow, should receive a good mulching in the autumn ”

“ The original of all the varieties of the cultivated apple is the wild crab, which has a small and extremely sour fruit, and is a native of most of the countries of Europe. Apples have been used as food and cultivated for upwards of 4000 years, and were probably introduced into Britain by the Romans. The greater number of the varieties now grown have, however, been cultivated only within the last century or so. ”

“ Nevertheless, our wild apple is wild only like myself, perchance, who belong not to the aboriginal race here, but have strayed into the woods from the cultivated stock. Wilder still, as I have said, there grows elsewhere in this country a native and aboriginal Crab-Apple, Malus coronaria, "whose nature has not yet been modified by cultivation." ”

“ The head is low-spreading, and the flowers sweet and beautiful. The blossom, as well as the fruit that follows it, is famous in story and in song. The kinds of apples are very numerous, and the number is increasing every year. The genus Pyrus, [4] to which the common apple belongs, has several species, including the mountain ashes, common chokeberry, and several kinds of crab apples, and last, but far from the least, the pears. The orchard apple is thus seen to be in the midst of good company. ”

“ The juice of a sour Apple, if rubbed on warts first pared away to the quick, will serve to cure them. The wild "Scrab," or Crab Apple, armed with thorns, grows in our fields and hedgerows, furnishing verjuice, which is rich in tannin, and a most useful application for old sprains. In the United States of America an infusion of apple tree bark is given with benefit during intermittent, remittent, and bilious fevers. ”

“ The prairie crabapple is the woolly twigged, pink-blossomed wild crab of the woods, from Minnesota and Wisconsin to Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. It has crossed with the roadside "wilding" trees and produced a hybrid known to horticulture as the Soulard apple, from its discoverer. These wild trees bear fruit that is distinctly an improvement upon that of either parent. It is regarded as a distinctly promising apple for the coldest of the prairie states, and has already become the parent of several improved varieties. ”

“ The Eastern crab apple grows over a large part of the region between the Atlantic coast, and the dry plains east of the Rocky Mountains, and south to Northern Alabama and Texas. The prairie crab, a different species, grows in the Mississippi Valley. A narrow-leaved species grows in the South, and the Oregon crab is the native wild apple of the woods, from California north into Alaska. ”

“ Thickets of small trees, bearing little solid green apples are a feature of almost every farm in the prairie states. They are common also on the hilly pastures of Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and New York. The South, too, has its native crab apple. School children the country over loved in my day to fill their pockets with the hard, sour, little fruits and nibble at them surreptitiously under cover of a broad geography. ”

“ The Land naturally produces hardly anything fit for Man to eat, and the Natives know nothing of Cultivation. There are, indeed, growing wild in the wood a few sorts of Fruit (the most of them unknown to us) , which when ripe do not eat amiss, one sort especially, which we called Apples, being about the size of a Crab Apple it is black and pulpey when ripe, and tastes like a Damson; it hath a large hard stone or Kernel, and grows on Trees or Shrubs.* (* The Black Apple, or Sapota Australis.) ”

“ THE wild crab apple, or prairie crab, is found throughout Illinois forming small trees 20 to 30 feet high with trunks from 6 to 12 inches in diameter. In the open it develops a broad open crown with rigid, contorted branches bearing many short, spur-like branchlets, some of which develop into sharp rigid thorns. ”

“ The pear, the quince, and the curious medlar, with its core exposed at the blossom end—all relatives of the apple—trace their lineage to European and Asiatic wild ancestors. The Siberian crab, native of northern Asia, is the parent of our hard-fleshed, slender-stemmed garden crabapples. Japan has given us some wonderful apple trees, with fruit no larger than cherries, cultivated solely for their flowers. The ornamental flora of America has been greatly enriched by these varieties. ”

“ The narrowleaf crab is found from Pennsylvania to Florida and westward to Tennessee and Louisiana. It thrives best in open spaces in the forest and is often found in glades and along the banks of streams in the North, while in the South it occurs in depressions in the pine barrens. The flowers are much like those of apple, very fragrant, and in color are white, pink, or rose. When in full bloom, the tree is a beautiful object, and its odor is carried long distances. The fruit is an apple in all respects except size and taste. ”

“ The fruit, which, though rather larger, resembles in shape the black haw, is a light brown berry, the fruit of a tree about the size, shape, and appearance in every respect, of that of the United States, called the wild crab-apple. ”

“ Place four fillets of bass in a buttered pan, season with salt and pepper, cover with the above sauce, and bake in oven until done. Serve the fish from a platter with the sauce over it.
Cranberry jelly. To three quarts of cranberries add two pounds of granulated sugar and one quart of water. Cook thoroughly, and force through a fine sieve. Cook the juice for fifteen minutes, and then pour into individual moulds.
Crab apple jelly, and marmalade. To eight quarts of crab apples add three quarts of water. Boil slowly for an hour, adding more water to make up for evaporation. ”

“ It was this party which first seriously and practically conceived the idea of utterly abolishing the ancient custom of eating pine-apples. While they themselves professed to devour no other fruit save crabs, they at the same time preached the doctrine of an universal fruit toleration, which they showed would be the necessary and natural consequence of the destruction of the old monopoly. Influenced by these representations, the great body of the people openly joined the Crab-apple men in their open attacks. ”

“ But here are species which they have not in their catalogue, not to mention the varieties which our Crab might yield to cultivation. Let us enumerate a few of these. I find myself compelled, after all, to give the Latin names of some for the benefit of those who live where English is not spoken,—for they are likely to have a world-wide reputation.
There is, first of all, the Wood-Apple (Malus sylvatica) ; the Blue-Jay Apple; the Apple which grows in Dells in the Woods (sylvestrivallis) , also in Hollows in Pastures (campestrivallis) ”

“ Wild fruit they are, cast by a superannuated crab, spared by the woodman's axe because it stands on the verge of the orchard. The apple-pickers never look under it for gleanings. The beans were pulled from a frost-bitten vine in the garden, and shelled with difficulty, the pods being tough, and Boy's fingers tender. ”

“ Yet from the explanatory considerations which have been set forth we can understand the derivation of the multifarious swarm of notions afloat in the world, as the fifteen hundred varieties of apple now known have all been derived from the solitary white crab. ”

“ The wild crab is very various in the size, colour, and flavour of its fruit, varying in the latter point from an austerity that, on biting an apple, would make one wince again, to that of an agreeable acid flavour, almost equal to some of our domestic apples. ”