APRICOT, a small tree (Amygdalus armeniaca), of the family Amygdalacere, long grown for its fruit and supposed to be a na tive of China, whence it reached Europe by way of western Asia in the time of Alexander the Great. The fruit resembles the peach in form, color and its downy skin and .has a large smooth or slightly furrowed plum-like pit. It usually ripens earlier than either the peach or the plum. The choice varieties, of which, considering the length of time that it has been in cultivation there are comparatively few, are firmer, less juicy, but probably higher flavored than the peach. The tree is plum like in leaf and habit and peach-like in bark. The apricot demands practically the same general management and is as hardy as the peach and succeeds in similar climates and situations.
The Russian apricot is a rather hardy race of the common species, with small fruits of generally inferior flavor. The Japanese apri cot (Amygdalus mume), rather recently in troduced into the United States as the Bun goume plum, bears small greenish or yellowish rather hard and dry clingstone fruits. Its flowers are fragrant. The little cultivated black or purple apricot dasycarpa), hears globular plum-like acid clingstone fruits. See GRAFTAGE; ORCHARD.
Eastern Apricot Growing.— Though grown to some extent in the eastern United States the apricot has not become widely pop ular for four principal reasons: Its suscepti bility to injury from late spring frosts which destroy the very early-appearing blossoms; the attacks of its special enemy, the curculio (see PLUM) ; incomplete knowledge of suitable stocks upon which to work it so as to ensure its most perfect growth in various soils, etc.; and ignorance of its dessert qualities, probably owing to the lack of systematic exploitation nurserymen. Best results seem to be ob tained upon the deep, dry, gravelly foams suit ed to the apple, where such lands are situated on the leeward side of large bodies of water or elevated and facing the north. The trees are usually set 20 feet apart and cultivated like the peach but since the fruit-bearing habit is similar to that of both the plum (on spurs) and the peach (on wood of the previous sea son's growth), pruning resembles most nearly that of the plum. When properly managed and grown under favorable conditions the apricot probably equals the peach in productive ness, but like other tree fruits the fruit must be systematically thinned to obtain specimens of good size and to prevent bearing in alter nate years. Since the apricot is even more a
dessert fruit than the peach and must be care fully grown, picked, packed and marketed, only the most careful Eastern fruit-growers attempt its extensive cultivation. The chief disease, leaf-spots, is treated under PEACH.
California Apricot Growing.— Though the apricot has been known in California for more than a century in the vicinity of the missions, where it was grown mainly from seeds, it has become commercially important only since American occupancy, in the early years of which improved varieties were intro duced from Europe. In the Old World these varieties were trained to walls and otherwise coddled; in California they require no such treatment. As a consequence the apricot has become a leading fruit of the State where now about 40,000 acres are devoted to this crop. The world-wide demand for the fruit, fresh, dried, canned and candied, is fostering still wider planting, and California, already the greatest apricot-growing region of the world, seems destined to be still greater. The tree is found to succeed well on the higher ground of interior valleys upon a variety of soils, but, as in the East, is susceptible in the low ground to injury by late spring frosts. For detailed account of California apricot-growing con sult Bailey
APRIL (Latin, Aprilis), the fourth month April (Latin, Aprilis), the fourth month of the year, consisting of 30 days, so-called probably from the word aperire, to open, as the buds begin to open at this time of the year. It was called Ooster, or Easter month, by the Anglo-Saxons and Charlemagne, in his new calendar, called it the grass month. In the Roman calendar April was the second month of the year and it was Julius who added the 30th day to it; during Nero's reign it was called Neroneus; and in the Athenian calendar it corresponds to the latter portion of Elaphe bolion and to the greater part of Munychion. In the French revolutionary calendar, as adopted by a decree of the National Conven tion on 24 Nov. 1793, it was merged into the last part of Germinal (bud month) and the first part of Floreal (flower month). Thus Germinal corresponds to the period 21 March to 19 April, and Floreal to the period 20 April to 19 May. See CALENDAR; EPOCH.