IV. APPLES, PEACHES, BLACKBERRIES AND STRAWBERRIES.
BY BYRON D. HALSTED, SC. D.
In our study of the food products of the earth, we now come to a consideration of some of our leading fruits. All of the four given above are furnished us by a single order of plants, namely: the Rose Family, or Rosaceæ.[1] This order not only contains the “Queen of Flowers,” but the “King of Fruits;” it is, in short, a royal family among plants, without which we should be deprived of much that is very beautiful, and more that is exceedingly useful. We are dependent upon the cereals for our flour, but what would flour be without some fruit to mix with it in the formation of a very long list of our most highly prized viands? Apple pies, peach dumplings, blackberry puddings and strawberry shortcakes all have their ardent admirers, and happy is the housewife who can make them to perfection.
The Apple.—Well might the apple be the fruit to tempt mankind. The schoolboy feels this when before him stands a neighbor’s tree loaded with the golden spheres of ripeness and sweetness. Well might Solomon with all his wisdom acknowledge the beauty and worth of this best of fruits when he writes: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” Downing, in his classic work on “The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America” says: “Among the heathen gods of the north there were apples fabled to possess the power of conferring immortality, which were carefully watched over by the goddess Iduna,[2] and kept for the special dessert of the gods who felt themselves growing old.” Apples may not confer immortality, but they lend new charms to life, and we should guard this fruit as did the sleepless dragon the golden apples in the orchards of Hesperus.[3]
If the “tree of knowledge” is not an allegory, and it bore apples, we have the antiquity as well as ancient edibility of the apple at once established. The origin and first home of the apple, like all the fruits, flowers and vegetables in cultivation before the time of human records, is all obscurity, and speculation has free course in seeking for the early history of the apple. This fruit was extensively cultivated by the Romans, and is widely diffused through all parts of the temperate zone.
The apple tree is one of slow growth and medium size, though there are some specimens in this country of great dimensions. 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.
Apples are classified in various ways; that by J. J. Thomas, in his “American Fruit Culturist,” is as follows: Three divisions are made upon the time of ripening—as, summer, autumn, and winter apples. Under each of these are two classes, namely: sweet apples, and those with more or less acidity. Under each of these six classes are two sections, viz.: color striped with red—color unstriped. The three points in this classification are season, taste, and color of skin. For example, the apple before me is a summer fruit, sweet, with skin not striped. It belongs in the second section of class one of the first division. It is the sweet bough. Again, the apple is striped, acid, and winter; by referring to the descriptive list we find it is northern spy, king of Tompkins, or Wagener. The characteristics of the groupings above given are not properly distinct. As Thomas says: “Summer apples gradually pass into autumn, and autumn into winter apples. A few … possess nearly a neutral flavor between a dead sweetness and slight acidity. Again, apples classed with those that are striped, sometimes present a nearly uniform shade of red.” So much interwoven are the colors, periods of ripening, etc., that Downing discards all classification and arranges his descriptive list alphabetically. In describing apples and similar fruit the word base is used for the stem end of the fruit, and apex the blossom end. The primary forms of apples are: oblate, roundish, conical, and oblong. The last report of the American Pomological Society[5] catalogues three hundred and thirty-seven varieties of apples, with the standing of each in the several states and territories. From this tabulation we select the following varieties as among those that proved the best: For summer, early harvest, red astrachan, sweet bough, American summer, Carolina June, and Oldenburg; for autumn, fall pippins, Porter, maiden’s blush, Gravenstein, late strawberry, sops of wine, and primate; for winter, Baldwin, Ben Davis, Hubbardston, Rhode Island greening, northern spy, and farmer’s. These sorts are not equally good everywhere, but taken all in all they are among the leading sorts. There may be some varieties of only local reputation that do better in their native section than any here mentioned. Some apples are adapted to the warmer climate of the southern states, while others are suited to the cold regions farther north. The wealthy apple is a fine illustration of the latter; it is especially suited to New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Colorado.
Apple trees are raised from seed sown in autumn, and remain in the seed bed for two or three years, when they are removed in the spring, with their tap-root or main root cut to the nursery rows. The following autumn they are budded with the desired variety. The well ripened bud is inserted in the bark of the twig, near the ground. The growth from the bud afterward forms the tree top. The trees may be set in the orchard the third year after budding. The soil best adapted for an orchard is a strong loam containing abundant limestone or calcareous matter. The soil should be kept mellow by frequent cultivation, until the trees are of considerable size. It must be remembered that the trees are of first importance, and they should not be starved by lack of richness in the soil or by the growth of exhausting grain crops.
There are many insect enemies to the apple tree, the leading among which are the borers, American tent caterpillar, canker worm, bark-lice and codling moth. The methods of treating each one of these pests have been well worked out, but space forbids our giving them in this connection.
It is important that apples be gathered with care, especially if to be sent to market. The reputation of American apples in the English market has suffered greatly from carelessness in picking and packing. Fruit sells more by appearance than anything else, and therefore the packages should be neat and the contents uniformly good. Apples are employed in various ways beside cooking. They are the source of much cider that afterward by fermentation forms the best quality of vinegar.
The Peach.—The peach (Prunus Persica[6]) is a native of Persia, as the botanical name indicates, and was brought from that country to Italy by the Romans. It is frequently mentioned by ancient writers, and was regarded with much veneration by the people of Asia. The peach reached the British Isles in the sixteenth century. There is no country where the peach is more successfully grown than in some portions of the United States. It can not be grown with profit north of 42° north latitude, but south of this line it flourishes as far as the Gulf of Mexico. There are some localities specially adapted for the peach, and here it is grown in its perfection. First among such sections is the Delaware peninsula, a territory of six thousand square miles, within which more peaches per acre are produced than anywhere else on the globe, and of the finest quality. A portion of Michigan, known as the “peach belt,” is likewise famous, and supplies the western markets with vast quantities of this luscious fruit.
The peach is a small tree, with long narrow leaves and beautiful pink blossoms. It grows rapidly to maturity, and after bearing a few crops is through with its best work, and should be replaced by another.
Mr. Fulton, in his small book on “Peach Culture,” writes: “The seed should be of natural fruit. It is more vigorous, more hardy, more certain to germinate, and the tree lives longer. This should never be overlooked by any planter who wishes the full reward of his labors.” This indicates that the seed in the budded fruit loses some of its vitality. It is doubtless a law that as we go farther from the native or wild state the less vigorous becomes the nurtured plant. The artificial life that many plants lead leaves them no time to store up strength for the continuation of the race, and in many cases they have lost all power of producing offspring. The young peach trees are provided by sowing the seeds in beds, carefully kept free from weeds. After the proper size is reached, buds are inserted, as above mentioned under the apple, and in a year or two the budded trees are ready for the orchard.
This process of budding is similar to that of making cuttings or slips, only, a single bud is set in the cleft bark of a living stem, instead of a piece of branch, with two or more buds, set in moist sand. Grafting differs from budding in that the cion is a stem with two or more buds, usually set in a cleft of a living branch; it is budding on a larger scale, and is suited to large trees.
The varieties of peaches are very numerous, more than one hundred and fifty sorts being set down in some lists. It is not an easy task to select the best. There are many things to consider in deciding upon the merit of a peach. It may have the best flavor, but be subject to rot, a poor bearer, or be so small that it will not sell well. The tree should be vigorous and productive, with fruit large, rich flavored, and fine colored. Such fruit is fit food for the gods. From the recent Pomological Society catalogue we find that the following varieties are the most in favor, take the whole country through. Among those known as very early are: Alexander, early York, large early York, Hales and truth; medium, early Crawford, Chinese cling, Columbia, oldmixon free and oldmixon cling; late, smock, stump-the-world, late Crawford, Heath cling, and Ward’s late. By a careful selection of varieties with regard to their time of ripening, a small orchard would furnish fruit from midsummer until the frosts come. In setting out an orchard there is a tendency to purchase new sorts, and for this the nurserymen are largely to blame. A man’s interest in the sale of so simple a thing as a tree may cause it to be overestimated. A half dozen time-tested standard sorts are worth more than a score of new seedlings without any record.
Peaches are classified by their fruit into those with white flesh and yellow flesh, and these are divided again into free-stones and clings. In some of the clings the flesh is very superior, but owing to its close union with the stone it is difficult to eat, and therefore is far less popular than free-stones of an inferior quality.
The leading enemies to the peach are the borer, curculio,[7] the leaf-curl and the “yellows.” The “curl” is caused by a fungus, and the remedy is picking and burning the leaves. The “yellows” is the most fatal of all the enemies, having ruined hundreds of the finest orchards. The cause is not fully understood, but the indications are that it may be a low form of microscopic life known as bacteria. No cure has been found, and when a tree turns the characteristic yellow it should be torn out and burned, root and branch.
We can not close this brief sketch without thinking of that happy boy reclining upon the shady sod, who
—lifted his head to where hung in his reach
All laden with honey, the ruddy-cheeked peach.
Blackberries.—The two fruits already described in this paper are of a comparatively large size, and grow on trees. We now come to the so-called “small fruits,” among which are the blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, currant, and gooseberry. The genus Rubus[8] furnishes both the blackberries and the raspberries, thus showing that these two kinds of small fruits are very closely related. There are about one hundred and fifty species of blackberries scattered throughout the world, but of these only two have furnished our gardens with the best cultivated varieties, namely: the high blackberry (R. villosus[9]), growing everywhere in thickets, with a strong prickly stem, six feet high, and the low blackberry, or dewberry (R. canadensis[10]), a long trailing plant, with slightly prickly stems, and small, early ripening fruit.
The cultivation of the blackberry has been retarded to a considerable extent by the excellence of the wild sorts—the people being satisfied with the fruit of the bramble in the fence row. The varieties that now head the list have all been chance seedlings found growing wild, and afterward improved by garden culture. The Lawton was found growing on a roadside in Westchester county, New York, and is often known by the name of its native town, New Rochelle. The Lawton did much to introduce the blackberry to the fruit gardens. The canes winter kill, and the fruit, unless perfectly ripe, is hard and sour at the core. The Kittatinny stands among the first for the size and richness of its fruit. This berry is a little earlier than the New Rochelle. It was found near the Kittatinny mountains, in New Jersey, and bears the peculiar Indian name of the place of its nativity. Mr. Roe, in his “Success with Small Fruits” says of the discoverer of the Kittatinny blackberry: “He has done more for the world than if he had opened a gold mine.”
The Wilson’s early is a third variety, of New Jersey origin, that grows low, with the canes trailing upon the ground. As the name indicates, this is a remarkably early blackberry, and were it not subject to attacks from insects it would be a very superior variety. The Snyder is of western origin, is wonderfully productive and hardy. The small size of the berry is the greatest defect of the Snyder. There are some recent candidates for popular favor, but the four mentioned have been found worthy of a place in the small fruit garden.
The blackberry prefers a rather dry soil, of medium richness. On a moist and very fertile soil the canes grow rank and large and produce very little fruit. The plants need to be set in rows six to eight feet apart each way. It is best to set the plants in autumn, because they start into growth very early in the spring, before there is opportunity for transplanting. Stakes or cheap wire trellises are usually provided for holding up plants. The canes that grow up one season produce fruit the succeeding year, and then die. It is therefore necessary to treat as weeds all shoots that are not needed for the bearing canes the following season. Judicious pruning of the cane while it is growing will produce much branched tops, which are more productive than those that grow to great length, and they are less liable to be injured by frost. Mr. Roe says: “More can be done with the thumb and finger at the right time than with the most savage pruning shears after a year of neglect.” The blackberry produces many suckers, and if these are left to grow for a year or two the whole ground becomes a wilderness that is not productive, and very difficult to subdue.
Strawberries.—It is not an easy task to find the person who dislikes strawberries. They are acceptable to the vast majority, and in almost any form, from the plain berry just picked off the vine to the juicy, red layer in a shortcake, or the heaping saucer with its fragrant contents half floating in sweet cream. The name strawberry probably came from the old Saxon streawberige, either because of the strawlike stems to the plants, or from the berries being strewn upon the ground. In olden times children strung the berries upon straws and sold them thus, and possibly from this we now have the name for our earliest and finest of small fruits. The name of the strawberry genus is Fragaria,[11] the Latin for “sweet smelling.” The cultivated varieties of strawberries represent five species. The most common one, growing wild almost everywhere being Fragaria vesca. In this species the seeds are superficial on the luscious cone. The Virginian strawberry, F. Virginiana, abundant in all parts of the United States, has roundish fruit, with the seeds embedded in deep pits. At the time of the introduction of this species in English gardens the culture of the strawberry took a fresh start. By sowing the seed of the Virginian species new varieties have been produced in large numbers, so that now it is the parent of nine-tenths of all the sorts grown in our gardens. The Hovey, Wilson, monarch, Seth Boyden, Charles Downy, and Sharpless are some of the improved varieties of this species. A new impetus was given to strawberry culture by the introduction of a South American species, F. grandiflora. The fruit is large and sweet, with a peculiar sprightliness that makes the varieties derived from this species highly prized in England and on this continent. Our cold winters and hot summers are too severe extremes for these offsprings of a more tropical species. The triumphe de gand and jucunda are two superb sorts derived from the F. grandiflora.
Some varieties of strawberries have what are known as pistillate flowers; that is, the stamens or male organs are imperfect or wanting. In such cases it is necessary to grow a perfect-flowered (bi-sexual) variety in close proximity, in order to insure fertilization and the formation of fruit. The famous Hovey seedling is a pistillate variety, and there are many others of this character.
One of the leading features of the strawberry plant is to multiply by means of long, slender branches, called runners. There are, however, three methods of propagating the strawberry, viz.: by the runners, by division of the root, and by seeds. The chief method is by runners. Strawberries need a rich, mellow soil. The plants may be set either in the spring or fall, though the spring is generally preferred by experienced strawberry growers. Plants set in autumn will not come into bearing the next season unless they are pot-grown. These pot-grown plants are obtained by sinking small flower pots in the earth of the strawberry bed, into the contents of which the runners strike root and form plants. The roots of the plants are not disturbed by transplanting, and one whole season is gained. In setting out strawberry plants care needs to be observed that the crown is not buried. The holes should be large, so that the roots may be spread out in all directions. If set in rows two and a half feet apart, and a foot or so distant in the row, a horse and cultivator may be used to advantage in keeping down the weeds. After two or three full crops have been gathered from a bed the rows may be plowed up. Some growers gather only one crop, and reset the land. There are many methods of treatment. In the fall the strawberry bed should be covered with a mulch. The success of many cultivators of the strawberry is due, in great measure, to the protection of their plants in winter.
The insect enemies to the strawberry are numerous, not the least of which is the white grub, the larvæ of the May beetle or “June Bug,” the strawberry worm, the leaf-roller, crown borer, saw fly, and various cut worms. A rust sometimes attacks the plants and almost ruins them.
It is very difficult to indicate what are the best varieties of strawberries. Again referring to the chart in the last issue of the American Pomological Society, we find forty-one varieties there tabulated. Of these the Charles Downing and the Wilson take the lead, being suited to a wide range of climate, soil, and other conditions. The Downing is the type of excellence in flavor and other qualities, while the Wilson is a firm, sour, and very prolific berry well suited for the market garden. Among the other sorts worthy of attention, mentioned alphabetically, are: Crescent, Cumberland, Hovey, Kentucky, Manchester, miner’s prolific, Monarch, Sharpless, and triumphe de gand. A dozen or more new sorts appear each year, some of which may take their places among the time-tested sorts here mentioned. It may be that in a few years all of these old varieties will be superseded by new sorts, and the berries that we now eat with so much relish will seem poor by the contrast. Let the future be as it may, no one should neglect the culture of the kinds we now possess. A person with only a village half acre may grow his own berries of various sorts, and still have room for a few pear, apple, peach, and cherry trees.
Let us close this brief treatment of small fruits at the same place where Mr. Roe began his large, elegant and exhaustive book on the same subject, by quoting the following passage from his “Preliminary Parley:” “Many think of the soil only in connection with the sad words of the burial service, ‘earth to earth, ashes to ashes.’ Let us, while we may, gain more cheerful associations with our kindred dust. For a time it can be earth to strawberry blossoms, ashes to bright red berries, and their color will get into our cheeks, and their rich, sub-acid juices into our insipid lives, constituting a mental, moral and physical alteration that will so change us that we shall believe in evolution, and imagine ourselves fit for a higher state of existence. One may delve in the earth so long as to lose all dread at the thought of sleeping in it at last, and the luscious fruits and bright hued flowers that come out of it, in a way no one can find out, may teach our own resurrection more effectually than do the learned theologians.”