APPLE. Horticulturists regard this tree and its fruit as the progeny of two original stems, the Pyru.s maims and Pyrus baccata, all the common species of apples being modifica tions of the P. mains of Linnaeus.
Origin and Antiquity.— The common apple appears in the mythology, traditions, history and archaeology of the most ancient nations, the Bible, Code of Menu, Book of the Dead, Hesiod's (Theogony) (v. 215). Its charred remains have been found in mud of the pre historic Lake Dwellings of Europe, while it is represented with sufficient fidelity in some of the most ancient stone carvings. It is mew tioned in the earliest annals of Babylon, Phrygia and Egypt. Relying upon its hybrid origin, it has been assigned by some horticul turists to Higher Asia, where the P. ma/us and P. baccata are most likely to have become asso ciated; a theory, however, which is contested by others, who advance many reasons for its conventional origin in Asia Minor. No contest appears to have arisen with regard to the habitat of P. baccata, in Higher Asia. There were and are still baccata which, unless they came from Higher Asia, are indigenous to America. Such are the P. ioensis, or Prairie States' crab, and P. coronaria, or Eastern States' crab. The latter is a sweet scented fruit about three-fourths of an inch in diam eter, which grew wild in all the Northern and Middle States. The tree was about 15 to 20 feet high, with light-green leaves and rose-colored blossoms, which appeared in May. This plant is now cultivated in all the States mentioned. There is also the P. rivularis, with yellow-red fruit, about the size of a cherry, native to the north Pacific, and eaten by the Chinooks; also the P. angustifolia of the Allegheny range; both of them native to this continent.
Appearance.— The apple tree (P. mains, order, Rosacer), as a rule, is not over 30 feet high, the trunk and branches crooked and gnarled, leaves short-stemmed, blossoms having permanent calyces and emerging in clusters. When in leaf, the tree presents that symmetri cal outline which suggests long domestication. The fruit usually round, sometimes oblate or ovoid, depressed at both ends, varies in size from two to six inches diameter, with a white, crisp, watery, sweet (or acidulous) pulp, centred by a core containing several small brown seeds and covered by a thin glossy (sometimes russet) skin, which, when cut open, yields an agreeable odor. In some varieties this becomes quite pungent.
Uses.— When eaten raw the apple is used as common food or as dessert to meals. It can be baked, roasted, stewed or boiled, made into marmalades, jellies, tarts, pies, puddings, cakes, preserves, sauces, apple-butter, Chinese chop suet' or French raisme; in short, into very varied dishes. The expressed juice of selected
apples forms a sparkling sweet cider, much esteemed and commonly drunk wherever the apple grows. Very strong cider is made by separating the water from the fermented juice. This is sometimes done by freezing, and skim ming off the ice. Pomona wine is made by adding a gallon of brandy to six gallons of new cider, allowing the mixture to stand still several months, racking off and bottling for future use. Verjuice is a product of the crab apple, P. baccata. Apples, when pared, cut and dried in the sun, afford an excellent sub stance for pies and sauces. Pomatum, as the name indicates, used to be made by mixing apple pulp with lard. Apple-wood is of fine grain and hard enough, when stained black, to pass for ebony. It is also employed in the manufacture of furniture, shoe-lasts, small cog-wheels, buttons, oriental imitations of olive wood and other objects. Dwarf apple trees are sometimes cultivated simply for ornament, as when planted for hedges, form ing very beautiful ones, when judiciously selected with regard to color of blossoms and fruit. They are also planted m limited grounds, when a variety of fruit is required to be produced in a narrow space. Many grafted on the wild crab seedling grow successfully and become dwarfed. The French paradise apple, a small variety, dwarfs other varieties grafted upon it. It is less dwarf than the crab, and more dwarf than the Daucain or English paradise stock, another stock in common use for this purpose. The dwarfing of trees is carried to an astonishing degree in China and Japan, where trees not more than a single foot high are produced and kept in flower-pots holding scarcely more than a quart. In England, France and the Low Countries apples are trained not only as dwarfs, but more commonly as espaliers and balloon shaped.
Apple crops exhibit great variance from year to year, sometimes halving and at other times doubling normal produce. The following table shows a normal crop at the present time , of about 240,000,000 bushels. Upon a rough computation, for which no accuracy is claimed, if 10,000,000 additional bushels of apples are annually reduced to cider and vinegar, the world's product of apples would amount to 250,000,000 bushels. Counting 200 apples to a bushel, the product would be 50,000,000,000 apples. As the Chinese, Japanese and other far eastern people export no apples and import but few, the product is substantially consumed in Europe, America and the colonies, which to gether contained, at the average date embraced by the table, about 625,000,000 people. This would make an average of 80 apples a year to each person, or 400 to the average family of five personi.