Getting Acquainted with the Trees

by J. Horace McFarland

The curious story of "Johnny Appleseed" is given us by historians, who tell us of this semi-religious enthusiast who roamed barefoot over the wilds of Ohio and Indiana a century ago, sowing apple-seeds in the scattered clearings, and living to see the trees bearing fruit, selections from which probably are interwoven among the varieties of today. New varieties of apples, by the way, come from seeds sown, and trees grown from them, with a bare chance that one in ten thousand may be worth keeping. When a variety seems thus worthy, "buds" or "scions" from the original tree are "budded" or "grafted" by the nurseryman into young seedling trees, which are thus changed into the selected sort. To sow the seeds of your favorite Baldwin does not imply that you will get Baldwin trees, by any means; you will more likely have a partial reversion to the acid and bitter original species.

It is not only for the fruit that we are indebted to the Old World, but also for some distinctively beautiful and most ornamental varieties of the apple, not by any means as well known among us as they ought to be. The nurserymen sell as an ornamental small tree a form known as "Parkman's double-flowering crab," which produces blooms of much beauty, like delicate little roses. Few of them, however, know of the glorious show that the spring brings where there is a proper planting of the Chinese and Japanese crab-apples, with some other hybrids and varieties. To readers in New England a pilgrimage to Boston is always in order. In the Public Gardens are superb specimens of these crab-apples from the Orient, as well as those native to this continent, and for several weeks in May they may be enjoyed. They are enjoyed by the Bostonians, who are in this, as in many things, better served by their authorities than is any other American city. What other city, for instance, gives its people such a magnificent spring show of hyacinths, tulips, daffodils and the like?

It is at the wonderful Arnold Arboretum, that Mecca of tree-lovers just outside of Boston and really within its superbly managed park system, that the greatest show of the "pyrus family," as the apples and pears are botanically called, may be found. Here have been gathered the lovely blooming trees of all the hardy world, to the delight of the eye and the nose, and the education of the mind. To me the most impressive of all was a wonderful Siberian crab (one must look for Pyrus baccata on the label, as the Arboretum folks are not in love with "common" names) close by the little greenhouses. Its round head was purely white, with no hint of pink, and the mass of bloom that covered it was only punctuated by the green of the expanding leaves. The especial elegance of this crab was in its whiteness, and that elegance was not diminished by the later masses of little yellow and red, almost translucent, fruits.

A somewhat smaller tree is commonly called the Chinese flowering apple, and its early flowers remind one strongly of the beauty of our own wild crab, as they are deeper in color than most of the crabs, being almost coral-red in bud. This "spectabilis," as it is familiarly called, is a gem, as it opens the season of the apple blooms with its burst of pink richness.

The beauty of a fruiting apple branch

The beauty-loving Japanese have a festival at the time of the cherry-blooming—and it is altogether a festival of beauty, not connected with the food that follows the flowers. They actually dare to cut the blossoms, too, for adornment, and all the populace take time to drink in the message of the spring. Will we workaday Americans ever dare to "waste" so much time, and go afield to absorb God's provision of soul and sense refreshment in the spring, forgetting for the time our shops and desks, our stores and marts?

Professor Sargent, that deep student of trees who has built himself a monument, which is also a beneficence to all mankind, in the great volumes of his "Silva of North America," lives not far from Boston, and he loves especially that jewel of the apple family which, for want of a common name, I must designate scientifically as Pyrus floribunda. On his own magnificent estate, as well as at the Arboretum, this superb shrub or small tree riots in rosy beauty in early spring. While the leaves do come with these flowers, they are actually crowded back out of apparent sight by the straight wands of rose-red blooms, held by the twisty little tree at every angle and in indescribable beauty. If the visitor saw nothing but this Floribunda apple—"abundant flowering" sure enough—on his pilgrimage, he might well be satisfied, especially if he then and there resolved to see it again, either as he planted it at home or journeyed hither another spring for the enlargement of his soul.

There are other of these delightful crabs or apples to be enjoyed—Ringo, Kaido, Toringo—nearly all of Japanese origin, all of distinct beauty, and all continuing that beauty in handsome but inedible fruits that hang most of the summer. My tree-loving friends can well study these, and, I hope, plant them, instead of repeating continually the monotonously familiar shrubs and trees of ordinary commerce.

But I have not spoken enough of one notable feature of the every-day apple tree that we may see without a journey to the East. The fully set fruiting branch of an apple tree in health and vigor, properly nurtured and protected against fungous disease by modern "spraying," is a thing of beauty in its form and color. See those deep red Baldwins shine overhead in the frosty air of early fall; note the elegance of form and striping on the leathery-skinned Ben Davis; appreciate true apples of gold set in green enamel on a tree of the sunny Bellefleur! These in the fall; but it is hardly full summer before the closely set branches of Early Harvest are as beautiful as any orange-tree, or the more upright Red Astrachan is ablaze with fruit of red and yellow. Truly, an apple orchard might be arranged to give a series of pictures of changing beauty of color and growth from early spring until fall frost, and then to follow with a daily panorama of form and line against snow and sky until the blossoms peeped forth again. Let us learn, if we do not already love the apple tree, to love it for its beauty all the year!