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  • From: david.maxwell@dal.ca
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] A historical question
  • Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:12:42 -0300

Does anybody have any solid evidence regarding the introduction of apples to North America?  Malus malus is not native to America, and was introduced from Europe by the early settlers.  Now here is the question: did they simply plant seeds, and grow seedling apples, or did they bring the old world varieties with them?   Beech  says, "Some few brought trees or scions of choice varieties, but more followed the less expensive plan of bringing seeds of selected fruits to plant about their new homes."  This, of course, ignores the fact that planting seeds of "selected fruits", (at least, selected apples) would not have yielded them trees of their "choice varieties".  He goes on to mention that Governor Endicott's apple tree was "stated to be a seedling", but "possibly the earliest recorded grafted tree brought from Europe was the Summer Bonchretien of Gov. Stuyvesant brought in 1647 in New Amsterdam., (which stood at the intersection of Third Ave. and 13'th St. in New York until it was broken down by a dray in 1866). 
Nicolas Denys, who accompanied Simon de Razilly in 1632, establishing the first capital of New France at the mouth of the LaHave River in modern-day Nova Scotia, recorded in 1635 details of the priest's garden: "He also had some apple and pear trees which were well started and very fine, but not yet in condition to bear, since they were brought small from France."  Certainly my interpretation of this is that he was importing grafted trees, almost certainly of named varieties.  (Nobody is going to bother importing seedlings, unless they wanted to get a head start on growing their own in the new world, knowing that there weren't any waiting for them in America.)  Certainly varietal apples were well known in Europe, and my understanding is that the appples grown there were generally grafted varietals rather than wild seedlings.  It makes sense to me that the settlers would have brought with them the same methods of apple culture they used in Europe, rather than reverting to wholesale sowing of random crosses of wild apples.
Any evidence?



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