John Aston Warder - American Pomology. Apples

It were an interesting and not unprofitable study to trace the various sources and routes by which fruits have been introduced into different parts of our extended country. In some cases we should find that we were indebted for these luxuries to the efforts of very humble individuals, while in other regions the high character of the orchards is owing to the forethought, knowledge, enterprise, and liberality of some prominent citizen of the infant community, who has freely spent his means and bestowed his cares in providing for others as well as for his own necessities or pleasures. But it is to the intelligent nurserymen of our country that we are especially indebted for the universal diffusion of fruits, and for the selection of the best varieties in each different section. While acting separately, these men were laboring under great disadvantages, and frequently cultivated certain varieties under a diversity of names, as they had received them from various sources. This was a difficulty incident to their isolation, but the organization of Pomological Societies in various parts of the country, has enabled them in a great measure to unravel the confusion of an extended synonymy, and also by comparison and consultation with the most intelligent fruit-growers, they have been prepared to advise the planter as to the best and most profitable varieties to be set out in different soils and situations.

Most of our first orchards were planted with imported trees. The colonists brought plants and seeds. Even now, in many parts of the country, we hear many good fruits designated as English, to indicate that they are considered superior to the native; and we are still importing choice varieties from Europe and other quarters of the globe.

The roving tribes of Indians who inhabited this country when discovered and settled by the whites, had no orchards—they lived by the chase, and only gathered such fruits as were native to the soil. Among the earliest attempts to civilize them, however, those that exerted the greatest influence, were efforts to make them an agricultural people, and of these the planting of fruit-trees was one of the most successful. In many parts of the country we find relics of these old Indian orchards still remaining, and it is probable that from the apple seeds sent by the general government for distribution among the Cherokees in Georgia, we are now reaping some of the most valuable fruits of this species. The early French settlers were famous tree-planters, and we find their traces across the continent, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. These consist in noble pear and apple trees, grown from seeds planted by them, at their early and scattered posts or settlements. These were made far in advance of the pioneers, who have, at a later period, formed the van of civilization, that soon spread into a solid phalanx in its march throughout the great interior valley of the continent.

On the borders of civilization we sometimes meet with a singular being, more savage than polished, and yet useful in his way. Such an one in the early settlement of the northwestern territory was Johnny Apple-seed—a simple-hearted being, who loved to roam through the forests in advance of his fellows, consorting, now with the red man, now with the white, a sort of connecting link—by his white brethren he was, no doubt, considered rather a vagabond, for we do not learn that he had the industry to open farms in the wilderness, the energy to be a great hunter, nor the knowledge and devotion to have made him a useful missionary among the red men. But Johnny had his use in the world. It was his universal custom, when among the whites, to save the seeds of all the best apples he met with. These he carefully preserved and carried with him, and when far away from his white friends, he would select an open spot of ground, prepare the soil, and plant these seeds, upon the principle of the old Spanish custom, that he owed so much to posterity, so that some day, the future traveler or inhabitant of those fertile valleys, might enjoy the fruits of his early efforts. Such was Johnny Apple-seed—did he not erect for himself monuments more worthy, if not more enduring, than piles of marble or statues of brass?

In tracing the progress of fruits through different portions of our country, we should very naturally expect to find the law that governs the movements of men, applying with equal force to the fruits they carry with them. The former have been observed to migrate very nearly on parallels of latitude, so have, in a great degree, the latter; and whenever we find a departure from this order, we may expect to discover a change, and sometimes a deterioration in the characters of the fruits thus removed to a new locality. It is true, much of this alteration, whether improvement or otherwise, may be owing to the difference of soil. Western New York received her early fruits from Connecticut, and Massachusetts; Michigan, Northern Illinois, and later, Wisconsin and Iowa received theirs in a great degree from New York. Ohio and Indiana received their fruits mainly from New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and we may yet trace this in the prevalence of certain leading varieties that are scarcely known, and very little grown on different parallels. The early settlement at the mouth of the Muskingum river, was made by New England-men, and into the "Ohio-purchase," they introduced the leading varieties of the apples of Massachusetts. Among these, the Boston or Roxbury Russet was a prominent favorite, but it was so changed in its appearance as scarcely to be recognized by its old admirers, and it was christened with a new name, the Putnam Russet, under the impression that it was a different variety. Most of the original Putnam varieties have disappeared from the orchards. Kentucky received her fruits in great measure from Virginia; Tennessee from the same source and from North Carolina, and these younger States sent them forward on the great western march with their hardy sons to southern Indiana, southern Illinois, to Missouri, and to Arkansas, in all which regions we find evident traces in the orchards, of the origin of the people who planted them.

Of course, we shall find many deflections from the precise parallel of latitude, some inclining to the south, and many turning to the northward. To the latter we of the West are looking with the greatest interest, since we so often find that the northern fruits do not maintain their high characters in their southern or southwestern migrations, and all winter kinds are apt to become autumnal in their period of ripening, which makes them less valuable; and because, among those from a southern origin, we have discovered many of high merit as to beauty, flavor, and productiveness—and, especially where they are able to mature sufficiently, they prove to be long keepers, thus supplying a want which was not filled by fruits of a northern origin. There may be limits beyond which we cannot transport some sorts to advantage in either direction, but this too will depend very much upon the adaptability of our soils to particular varieties.

In every region where fruit has been cultivated we find local varieties grown from seed, many of these are of sufficient merit to warrant their propagation, and it behooves us to be constantly on the look out for them; for though our lists are already sufficiently large to puzzle the young orchardist in making his selections, we may well reduce the number by weeding out more of the indifferent fruit, at the same time that we are introducing those of a superior character. It has been estimated that there may be as many as one in ten of our seedling orchard trees that would be ranked as "good," but not one in a hundred that could be styled "best." 2 2 Elliott—Western Fruits. Certain individuals have devoted themselves to the troublesome though thankless office of collecting these scattered varieties of decided merit, and from their collections our pomological societies will, from time to time, select and recommend the best for more extended cultivation. Such devoted men as H.N. Gillett, Lewis Jones, Reuben Ragan, A.H. Ernst, who have been industriously engaged in this good work for a quarter of a century, are entitled to the highest commendation; but there are many others who have contributed their full share of benefits by their labors in the same field, to whom also we owe a debt of gratitude. Two of the chief foci in the Ohio valley from which valuable fruits have been distributed most largely, were the settlement at the mouth of the Muskingum, with its Putnam list given below; and a later, but very important introduction of choice fruits, brought into the Miami country by Silas Wharton, a nurseryman from Pennsylvania, who settled among a large body of the religious Society of Friends, in Warren Co., Ohio. The impress of this importation is very manifest in all the country, within a radius of one hundred miles, and some of his fruits are found doing well in the northwestern part of the State of Ohio, in northern Indiana, and in an extended region westward.