The Apple

Teacher’s Story

“Man fell with apples and with apples rose,
If this be true; for we must deem the mode
In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose,
Through the then unpaved stars, the turnpike road,
A thing to counterbalance human woes.”

—Byron.

PPLES seem to have played a very important part in human history, and from the first had much effect upon human destiny, judging from the trouble that ensued both to Adam and to Helen of Troy from meddling, even though indirectly, with this much esteemed fruit. It is surely no more than just to humanity—shut out from the Garden of Eden—that the apple should have led Sir Isaac Newton to discover the law which holds us in the universe; and that, in these later centuries, apples have been developed, so beautiful and so luscious as almost to reconcile us to the closing of the gates of Paradise.

While it is true that no two apples were ever exactly alike, any more than any two leaves, yet their shapes are often very characteristic of the varieties. From the big, round Baldwin to the cone-shaped gillyflower, each has its own peculiar form, and also its own colors and markings and its own texture and flavor. Some have tough skins, others bruise readily even with careful handling; but to all kinds, the skin is an armor against those ever-present foes, the fungus spores, myriads of which are floating in the air ready to enter the smallest breach, and by their growth bring about decay. Even the tip of a branch or twig swayed by the wind, may bruise an apple and cause it to rot; windfalls are always bruised and will not keep. Greater care in packing, wrapping, picking and storing, so as to avoid contact with other apples, is a paying investment of labor to the apple grower.

The cavities at the stem and basin-ends of the fruit are also likely to have, in the same variety, a likeness in their depth or shallowness, and thus prove a help in identifying an apple. At the blossom, or basin, end of the fruit may be seen five scales, which are all that remain of the calyx-lobes which enclosed the blossom; and within them are the withered and shrunken stamens and styles.

When the fruit is cut, we see that the inner parts differ as much in the different varieties as do the outer parts. Some have large cores, others small. The carpels, or seed-cells, are five in number, and when the fruit is cut across through the center these carpels show as a pretty, five-pointed star; in them the seeds lie, all pointing toward the stem. Some apples have both seeds and carpels smooth and shining, while in others they are tufted with a soft, fuzzy outgrowth. The number of seeds in each cell varies; the usual number is two. In case a carpel is empty, the apple is often lopsided, and this signifies that the stigma of that ovary received no pollen. The apple seed is oval, plump and pointed, with an outer shell, and a delicate inner skin covering the white meat; this separates readily into two parts, between which, at the point, may be seen the germ. The entire core, with the pulp immediately surrounding the seed cells, is marked off from the rest of the pulp by the core-lines, faint in some varieties but distinct in others. In our native crab-apples this separation is so complete that, when the fruit is ripe, the core may be plucked out leaving a globular cavity at the center of the apple.

Extending from the stem to the basin, through the center of the apple, is a bundle of fibers, five in number, each attached to the inner edge of a carpel, or seed-box. Other bundles of fibers pass through the flesh about half way between the core and the skin. Delicate as they are, so that no one observes them in eating the fruit, they show clearly as a second core-line, and each terminates at a point in the calyx-tube where the stamens were attached—as can be easily seen by dissecting an apple. In transverse section, these show as ten faint dots placed opposite each outer point and inner angle of the star at the center formed by the carpels. Sometimes the seed-cells are very close to the stem, and the apple is said to have a sessile core; if at the center of the fruit, it has a medium core; if nearest to the blossom end, it has a distant core. This position of the core marks different varieties.

Apples even of the same variety, differ much in yield and quality according to the soil and climate in which they grow. The snow apple grows best in the St. Lawrence Valley, and New York State is noted for the fine flavor of the Esopus spitzenburg, the northern spy, and the Newtown pippin, all of which originated and grow best within its boundaries. Thus, each locality has its favorite variety.

Too often in passing through the country, we see neglected and unprofitable orchards, with soil untilled, the trees unpruned and scale-infested, yielding scanty fruit, fit only for the cider mill and the vinegar barrel. This kind of orchard must pass away and give place to the new horticulture.

References—Popular Apple Growing, Green; The American Apple Orchard, Waugh; The Apple and How to Grow It, Farmers’ Bulletin 113, U.S. Department of Agriculture.