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  • From: John Henderson <jhenderson@ithaca.edu>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] A historical question
  • Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 22:02:59 -0400

It seems pretty clear that both seeds and scionwood were brought over by different emigrants. I know some history of one apple tree that has some documentation. There has been some speculation about whether the Rambo (Winter Rambo, not Summer Rambo) was brought over from Sweden in 1641 by Peter Gunnarsson Rambo as a seedling, thus making it a Swedish tree, or if he brought over only apple seeds. Helpful information is found in an addenda of notes to a supplementary diary published as an appendix to Peter Kalm's Travels in North America, that was first translated into English in 1937. In an entry on the early Swedish settlers, Kalm reports on a conversation with Peter Rambo, grandson of Peter Gunnarsson Rambo, on 30 January 1749. The grandson told him that the elder Peter Rambo brought "apple seeds and other tree and garden seeds" with him in a box. The first written documentation for the Rambo apple is not until William Coxe's 1817 treatise "In A view of the cultivation of fruit trees, and the management of orchards" in which he writes, "This apple is much cultivated in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New-Jersey; taking its name from the families by whom it was introduced into notice." Therefore the Rambo apple could have come after several generations of plantings and orchard development. There is a long history of confusion between the Rambo and Rambour apples, but they are not related. The Summer Rambo was originally called the Rambour Franc, and was available in colonial America about as earlly as the Rambo. Based on its genetic similarity to the Rambour d'Ete found in France, scionwood must have been brought over in colonial times.

John Henderson
Sage Hen Farm
Lodi, NY

nafex-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:12:42 -0300
From: david.maxwell@dal.ca
Subject: [NAFEX] A historical question
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: 49EB77AA.19454.AB497C@david.maxwell.dal.ca"><49EB77AA.19454.AB497C@david.maxwell.dal.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

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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