The varieties in the catalogue of the American Pomological Society are starred if "known to succeed in a given district" and double-starred "if highly successful." North America is thrown into nineteen districts for the purposes of this catalogue (which comprises other fruits besides apples). For our purposes we may combine them into six more or less indefinite great regions: n. e., the northeastern part of the country, Delaware and Pennsylvania to eastern Canada; s. e., the parts south of this area and mostly east of the Mississippi; n. c., north central, from Kansas and Missouri north; s. w., Texas to Arizona; mt., the mountain states of the Rockies west to the Sierras, including of course much high plains country; pac., the Pacific slope, Washington to southern California.
Of the varieties starred and double-starred in these various geographical regions there are 107; these are listed herewith. Of course the intervening twenty years might change the rating of some of these apples, other varieties have come to the front, and certain ones of these older worthies are receding still further into the background; but the exhibit is suggestive none the less.
Arkansas—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Bailey (Sweet)—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Baker—n.e.
Baldwin—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., s.w., pac.
Beach—s.e.
Belle Bonne—n.e.
Ben Davis—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Bietigheimer—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Bledsoe—s.e.
Blenheim—n.e., n.c.
Blue Pearmain—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Bough, Sweet—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Bryan—s.e., mt.
Buckingham—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Canada Reinette—n.e., n.c., mt.
Clayton—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Clyde—n.e., n.c.
Cogswell—n.e.
Cooper—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Cracking—s.e., n.c.
Doyle—s.e.
Early Pennock—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Esopus (Spitzenburg)—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Ewalt—n.e., s.e., mt.
Fallawater—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Fall Harvey—n.e., mt.
Fall Jenneting—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Fall Orange—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Fall Pippin—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Fanny—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w.
Farrar—s.e.
Foundling—n.e.
Gano—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Gilbert—s.e.
Golding—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Gravenstein—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., s.w., pac.
Hagloe—n.e., s.e.
Hoover—s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Hopewell—n.c.
Horse—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Hubbardston—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w.
Hunge—s.e.
Huntsman—s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Isham (Sweet)—n.c.
Jacobs Sweet—n.e.
Kent—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Kernodle—s.e.
Lady Sweet—n.e., mt.
Lankford—n.e., s.e.
Lawver—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Lilly (of Kent)—n.e.
Lowe—s.e.
Lowell—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
McAfee—n.e., s.e, mt.
McCuller—s.e.
McMahon—n.e., n.c., mt.
Magog—n.e.
Maverack—s.e.
Milwaukee—n.c.
Minister—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Monmouth—s.e., n.c., mt.
Newell—n.c.
Nickajack—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Northern Spy—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Northwestern (Greening)—n.e., n.c., mt.
Oconee—n.e., s.e.
Ohio Nonpareil—n.e., s.e.
Ohio Pippin—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Ortley—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Paragon—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Patten (Greening)—n.c.
Pease—n.e.
Peck (Pleasant)—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Peter—n.c.
Pewaukee—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Porter—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Pumpkin Sweet—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Quince—n.e., n.c.
Ramsdell (Sweet)—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Red Astrachan—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Rhode Island (Greening)—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Ridge (Pippin)—n.e.
Rolfe—n.e.
Rome—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Stark—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
Starkey—n.e., s.e.
Stayman Winesap—n.e., s.e., n.c.
Sterling—n.e., n.c.
Summer King—n.e., s.e.
Swaar—n.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Taunton—s.e.
Titovka—n.e., mt.
Tompkins King—n.e., s.e., mt., pac.
Twenty Ounce—n.e., s.e., s.w., mt.
Utter—n.c.
Vanhoy—n.e., s.e.
Virginia Greening—s.e., mt.
Washington (Strawberry)—n.e., s.e., mt.
Watson—s.e.
White Pippin—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt., pac.
Wine—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Wistal—s.e., s.w.
Wolf River—n.e., s.e., n.c., mt.
Yellow Bellflower—n.e., s.e., s.w., mt., pac.
Yellow Newtown—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt., pac.
Yopp—s.e.
York Imperial—n.e., s.e., n.c., s.w., mt.
There are many odd varieties of apple not found in any list but about which questions are likely to arise. One of these is the Sweet-and-Sour. There is an old ribbed variety of this name, the ribs having an acid flesh and the furrows sweetish; it is little known and of no special value. Apples are sometimes found that are sweetish on one side and sourish on the other. The reasons for this kind of variation are no more understood than are those responsible for variance in color or shape or durability. One yet sometimes hears the pleasant fable that sweet-and-sour apples are produced by splitting the bud when the tree was propagated.
The Surprise is a small whitish apple with light red flesh. It is indeed a surprise to bite into such an apple, but it has little merit. It is an early winter variety.
One is frequently asked about the Sheepnose apple, particularly by older people who remember it from early days and who deplore its infrequency in these latter times. The sheepnose shape—long-conical—is an infrequent variation, as apples go, and apparently none of these forms chances to have sufficient merit to keep it in the lists. The name is often applied to the Black Gilliflower, an old apple more than three inches long, dark red, of light weight perhaps because of the large core, ripening late in autumn to midwinter. It seems to be specially prized by children, perhaps in part because of its unusual shape and in part by its aromatic fragrance; but it is not a high-class apple, and is now little seen. With the Rambo, Vandevere, some of the russets, Early Harvest, Jersey Sweet and other old worthies, it probably will pass away unless rescued here and there by the amateur. To the lover of choice fruit nothing is old; every succeeding crop is as choice and new as is the new year itself, and one waits for it again and again.
One hears of seedless and no-core apples, as also of pears. The core is present but greatly reduced in size, and the seeds may be few and small. I have also raised practically seedless tomatoes. All these are infrequent variations that may be propagated by asexual parts (cuttings, cions), but as yet none of them has any outstanding value.
The reader will now ask me about the water-core apples, so much sought and prized by youngsters. The water-core is not characteristic of a variety, although occurring in some varieties more frequently than in others. It is a physiological condition, supposed to be associated with a relatively low transpiration (evaporation) so that excess water is held in the fruit. In certain seasons this condition is marked, and also in cloudy regions and often on young trees that have an over-supply of moisture. Yet such cores occur in old trees and sometimes with more or less regularity. What the physiological inability may be in such cases to dispose of excess moisture appears to be undetermined.
Now and then one finds a double apple, with two fruits grown solidly together, two blossom ends and a single stem. A seedling tree I knew as a boy bore such apples frequently, sometimes a score of them among the crop of the year. This, of course, is a malformation or teratological state. Apparently two flowers coalesce to form these fruits. On the tree of which I speak, the two fruits were about equal in size, making a large, widened, edible apple, but I have known of other cases in which a diminutive undeveloped fruit is attached to the side of a normal one.
Perhaps the oddest of them all is the "Bloomless apple." It is said to have no flowers. In fact, however, the flowers are present but they lack showy petals and are therefore not conspicuous. The bloomless apple is a monstrous state, the cause of which is unknown. Now and then a tree is reported. It was described at least as long ago as 1768, and in 1770 Muenchhausen called it Pyrus apetala (the petalless pyrus). The flowers have no stamens, and apparently they are pollinated from any other apples in the vicinity. In 1785, Moench described it as Pyrus dioica (the diœcious pyrus, sexes separated on different plants). The ovary is also malformed, having six or seven and sometimes probably more cells, and bearing ten to fifteen styles. The resulting fruit has a core character unknown in other apples but approached in certain apple-like fruits, as the medlar. The fruit has a hole or opening from the calyx (which is open) into the core; and the core is roughly double, one series above the other. The fruit, in such specimens as I have seen or read about, has no horticultural merit; but it is a curiosity of great botanical interest. It appears now and then in widely separated places, the trees probably having originated as chance seedlings. The fruits from the different originations are not always the same in size and form, but the flowers apparently all have the same malformed character.