The Apple-Tree Part 8

XVI

THE HARVEST OF THE APPLE-TREE

Finally the apple is ripe, a fair goodly object joyous in the sun, inviting to every sense. Hanging amidst its foliage, bending the twig with its weight, it is at once a pattern in good shape, perfect in configuration, in sheen beyond imitation, in fragrance the very affluence of all choice clean growth, its surface spread with a bloom often so delicate that the unsympathetic see it not; and yet the rains do not spoil it.

The apple must be picked. Do not let it fall. Probably it is over-ripe when it falls; the hold is loosened; its time is up. Wormy apples may fall before they are ripe; the worm injury, if it begins early, causes them to ripen prematurely. A premature apple is not a good apple, albeit the small boy relishes it but only because he may get his apple earlier; in the apple season, when ripe fruits are abundant, the boy does not choose the wormy one.

Pick the apple from the tree. It will do you good. It is ever so much better than to pick it from a box on the market or out of a quart-can in the ice-chest. You will feel some sense of responsibility when you pick it, some reaction of relations.h.i.+p to its origin. We know that we understand folks better when we see them at home.

In varieties that mature before winter, the apple is of best quality when it ripens on the tree and is picked when fit to eat. In this respect it differs from the pear. One reason why store apples are usually poor is because they must be picked long before ripe to stand s.h.i.+pment. In my experience it is most difficult to find a man who will pick apples when ripe; he is usually possessed to pull them green, thinking that if the fruit is full grown and has a red cheek it is therefore ready to be plucked.

One would expect the best summer and fall apples to come from nearby local orchards, but practically this is not the case because the grower will not allow them to remain on the tree until they are fit.

Of course the really ripe apple will not keep long and it does not stand rough handling, but this does not affect the fact that, for eating, an apple should be naturally ripe. In every city, small or large, a good trade can be built up for local ripe hand-picked fruit of the first quality, in compet.i.tion with the best commercial supply.

Winter apples are picked in the Northern States in October, sometimes late in September. They are then full grown, but are hard and inedible. The red varieties are full colored; the green ones show more or less yellow. Light early frost does not injure them on the tree.

Usually they are placed at first in piles or windrows; and from these piles they are barreled or boxed for market. If the choicest grades are to be made, they should be taken to a packing-house.

The apple is an easy fruit to pick. The stem parts readily from the spur or twig. Yet if the harvester is choice of his trees he will work deftly rather than roughly, not to injure the bearing wood. The fruits are placed in baskets as they are plucked, sometimes in a bag slung over the shoulders but this is not the best way when the apples are ripe. In the packing-house, the fruits are sorted into uniform grades if they are for market.

The better the trees are tilled, pruned and sprayed, the more uniform will be the crop, and particularly if the fruit is thinned on the tree; yet the second-cla.s.s and even cull apples will be many under ordinary conditions. The purchaser, noting the price of extra-grade apples, may not realize that he buys only the remainder in a long process of grading, extending really over the season or even throughout the life of the orchard. In all this time, the grower has borne the risks of frosts and hail, insect and fungus invasions, lack of help, and disastrously low prices. A finished product of high quality is always expensive.

The usual apples on the open market are not the kind I have here tried to describe. They are the product of indifferent orchards or of careless handling. They are purchased for cooking; and the eating of apples out of hand because they are attractive and really good is an unknown experience with great numbers of our people. The polished s.h.i.+ny apples of the fruit-stands are a delusion. The practice of burnis.h.i.+ng the fruits produces a most inartistic result, destroying the natural bloom and violating the appearance of a natural apple. It is one thing to clean a fruit if it is soiled (which is seldom the case with boxed or barreled apples); it is quite another thing to rub and furbish an apple as if it were a billiard ball or gla.s.s marble and not a living object that grew on a tree,--it sets false standards before the children. Yet all this is in line with much of our practice whereby, in cookery and manipulation, we disguise our foods and show our lack of appreciation of the products themselves.

For home use, winter apples may well be stored in boxes in a cool moist cellar if such a place is available. For best results in long keeping, the temperature should be maintained below 40 degrees F. In a cellar containing a furnace, the fruits shrivel from too much evaporation, as also in an attic or other dry room. If the fruit must be stored in such places, it is well to keep the box or barrel tightly closed, and the individual apples may be wrapped in thin paper.

The apples must be sorted now and then, to remove the decaying ones; if the fruit was carefully sprayed, handled and graded in the first place and not too ripe, the necessity of frequent sorting will be considerably reduced. But in any case, the keeping of apples, except under good cold-storage, is at best a process of continually saving the most durable fruits. An "outside cellar," if properly ventilated, usually is a good place in which to keep apples. With the use of furnaces for heating and the cramped quarters of city apartments, the keeping of apples for home supply is constantly more difficult.

There is no apple like the one that comes up fresh from the cellar on a winter night, cool, crisp, solid yet ready. It is the fruit of the home fireside. I often wonder whether one in a hundred of the people know what a really good and timely apple is.

The yield of an apple-tree depends on many factors,--age, size, thriftiness, care it has received, whether it has escaped frost and other injuries; and some varieties are much more prolific than others.

Some apples are "shy bearers," and for this reason soon are lost to propagation unless they have some superlative merit; Yellow Bellflower is an example of a shy, or at least an irregular, bearer.

The great commercial varieties are of course good bearers, as Baldwin, Ben Davis, Stayman, York Imperial, Oldenburg, Rome, McIntosh, Wealthy, Yellow Transparent, Jonathan.

An apple-tree at full bearing is a wonderful sight at the harvest, particularly in such varieties as McIntosh and Baldwin, in which the fruit is highly colored and hangs well toward the outside of the tree-top. While the first bearing year may yield only a half dozen fruits, the crop increases rapidly with the added years,--one peck, one bushel, five bushels, ten bushels, thirty bushels, even to sixty and seventy bushels on large st.u.r.dy old trees of some varieties. The amateur, however, first prizes the quality and regularity of his product for the sheer joy of it; then every added bushel is so much to the good.

XVII

THE APPRAISAL OF THE APPLE-TREE

Now, therefore, in these sixteen little chapters have I tried to explain what I feel about the apple-tree. It is a version to my friend, the reader, not a treatise.

As the interpretation is in the realm of the sensibilities, so do I aim not directly at concreteness. Yet as it is now the fas.h.i.+on to "score" all our products by a scale of "points," I make a reasonable concession to it. But I do not like the scoring of the fruit independently of the tree on which it grew as if the fruit were only a commodity. I know we cannot bring the tree to the exhibition-room, yet the perfect measure, nevertheless, is the tree and the fruit together.

In these later times we have said much against the use of the museum specimen to the exclusion of the living object in its natural place: let us be cautious, then, that we do not forget apple-trees in our studies of apples.

Here I shall not arrange numerical scales of points for the apple-tree. Sufficient for this occasion is the naming of the points, letting the reader place his own percentage-value on each of them; for I am trying to teach, not to instruct.

Yet I must insert, for the reader's benefit, certain good rules and scores that have been adopted for the "judging" of the fruit by those experienced in these matters. This excellent exercise of judging fruits at exhibitions has gained much headway. Students of schools and colleges are trained for the "judging teams," and great technical perfection has been attained.

To be exact is an exigency of science. I fear that we make exactness an end, but that is neither here nor there on this occasion and I shall not now pursue the subject further; I hope the judging trains the judge to see what he looks at in other things as well as in apples, that it leads him into the pleasant paths of causes and effects, that it opens the eyes of the blind.

The customary judging of plants and animals and their products consists in a.s.sessing the attributes against a scale of perfection.

Thus, if "form" or "conformation" is worth 10 points in the hundred (by the estimation of good authorities), the judge must decide whether the particular animal before him merits 6 or 7, more or less. So if "flavor" in an apple is considered to be worth 20 points of the hundred, the judge makes up his mind what rating, within that limit, he shall accord to the fruit he is testing. The arrangement in tabular form of the features for any product, with the number of points stated for each, all summing 100, const.i.tutes a "score-card." Thus there may be a score-card for Merino sheep, another for Shrops.h.i.+res, one for apples, and for any other objects whatsoever.

At compet.i.tive exhibitions, the element of comparison comes in.

Perhaps it is the only criterion to be considered in a particular case,--whether this apple is better than that or than any number of others, which of several "plates" or samples of apples merits first mention, which of two or more collections of varieties is altogether most worthy of a prize. In these cases, the different fruits or collections may be scored by the card, and the total footings determine where the award shall go. Or, the different entries may be judged in general, "by the eye;" this is the usual method, and is satisfactory in the hands of persons whose standing and experience carry conviction.

If one is to evaluate an apple-tree against a scale or code, these are some of the features, in relative order of importance, to be considered:

1. Whether the tree is typical of the variety, in shape, manner of growth, character of foliage and bloom.

2. Whether it is sound of all injury and disease, and free of blemish.

3. Whether it is duly vigorous and productive.

4. Whether its fruit is characteristic of the variety or kind.

5. Whether the pruning has been good; the thinning; the spraying.

6. Whether the performance of the tree has fulfilled reasonable expectations.

The judging of fruits is facilitated by such score-cards and explanations as the following:

1. For comparison of different dessert varieties.

Conformation 10 Size 5 Color 20 Core 5 Uniformity 5 Durability (keeping) 10 Condition 5 Freedom from blemish 10 Quality 30 ---- 100

2. For comparison of plates or samples of the same variety.

Form 15 Size 15 Color 25 Uniformity 25 Freedom from blemish 20 ---- 100

DIRECTIONS FOR JUDGING PLATES OF APPLES IN AN EXHIBITION

Following are directions and explanations issued to judging teams in exhibition contests, by an agricultural college:

(1) _Form_: The shape and conformation of the apples on any one plate should be typical for the variety, the region of growth being somewhat considered. All specimens on a plate should be uniform in shape. When compet.i.tion is close, a careful comparison of the more minute characteristics of the basin, cavity and stem are made.

(2) _Size_: The specimens on any one plate should be uniform in size and of the size most acceptable on the market for the variety. A plate may be marked down for being either under or over the accepted commercial size. In many exhibits, the ideal size is given in the premium announcements.

(3) _Colors_: All specimens in an entry should be uniformly colored in the way that is considered perfect for the variety in the district where grown. In judging color, one should consider (_a_) the depth and attractiveness of the ground color, (_b_) the brightness and attractiveness of the over-color, (_c_) the amount of the over-color. In a yellow or green apple, the yellow or green should be clear and even all over, considering the maturity of the specimen. In varieties that are typically blushed, (e. g., Maiden Blush) the specimens should show a distinct tinge of red on the cheek exposed to the sun. With such apples as Rhode Island Greening, that are only sometimes blushed, the presence or absence of the blush should not detract except that the apples on any one plate should be uniform. With apples typically over-colored, an intense color for the variety is desirable.