apples and pears

241 Pages·2013·9.56 MB·English

APPLES PEARS
AND
VARIETIES AND CULTIVATION
IN 1934
REPORT
OF THE
CONFERENCE
HELD BY THE
ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY
at the Crystal Palace, Sept. 19-2.1, 1934
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EDITED BY
P. J. CHITTENDEN, P.L.S., V.M.H.
"'
LONDON
•
THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY
VINCENT SQUARE, S.W.
I
1935
CONTENTS~
PAGE
INTRODUCTION I
CONFERENCE OPENING ADDRESS. By THE LORD ABERCONWAY 3
WINTER PRUNING OF ApPLES, PEARS AND PLUMS. By J. WILSON 7
SUMMER PRUNING OF HARD FRUITS. By A. H. LEES, M.A. I4
DISCUSSION ON PRUNING ZI
FRUIT TREES FOR SMALL GARDENS. By A. N. RAWES •• 33
POLLINATION IN ApPLES, PEARS AND PLUMS 38
THE BASIS OF CLASSIFICATION IN ApPLES AND PEARS:
INTRODUCTION, ETC. By SIR FREDERICK KEEBLE.
C.B.E., M.A., F.R.S. 47, 88
ApPLES AND PEARS. By E. A. BUNYARD 47
NOMENCLATURE. By H. S. RIVERS 74
RECOGNITION OF VARIETIES. ByH. E. DURHAM, Sc.D.,
M.B. 76
DISCUSSION 82
THE ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED FRUITS. By M. B. CRANE go
ORCHARD FACTORS AFFECTING FRUIT QUALITY:
INTRODUCTION, ETC. By SIR JOHN RUSSELL, F.R.S. g8, II7
FACTORS. By DR. T. WALLACE g8
DISCUSSION ro8
THE NATIONAL FRUIT TRIALS. By SIR A. D. HALL, K.C.B.,
F.R.S. IZI
NEW VARIETIES OF ApPLES AND PEARS. By A. N. RAWES Iz6
DISCUSSION: MR. F. PAGET NORBURY •• I33
THE FRUIT THE PUBLIC WANTS. (I) By H. L. TAYLOR •. I36
(2) By H. V. TAYLOR, O.B.E.,
B.Sc.
. PEARS FROM A COMMERCIAL ASPECT. By THOMAS NEAME
DISCUSSION
ROOTSTOCKS FOR PEARS. By R. G. HATTON, M.A., C.B.E.,
V.M.H. I54
STORAGE OF ApPLES. By DR. C. WEST AND DR. F. KrnD I6,7
GATHERING AND STORING ApPLES AND PEARS. By E. NEAL I76
EXHIBITION I79
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CONTRIBUTORS TO THE EXHIBITION OF ApPLES 182
VARIETIES OF ApPLES EXHIBITED 185
VARIETIES OF CIDER ApPLES EXHIBITED 204
FOREIGN ApPLES EXHIBITED 209
FOREIGN ApPLES. By E. A. BUNYARD 209
ApPLES IN ESTHONIA. By A. JANSON 212
INDEX •• 215
CONFERENCE
ON
APPLES AND PEARS
HELD BY THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY,
SEPTEMBER 19-21, 1934, AT THE
CRYSTAL PALACE.
PRESIDENT.
The Lord ABERCONWAY, C.B.E., President, Royal Horticultural
Society.
A CONFERENCE on Apples, Pears and Plums was arranged by the
Royal Horticultural Society for 1934, and held at the Crystal Palace,
on September 19-21, at the time of the Great Autumn Show.
The Council appointed the following Committee to make arrange
ments for the Conference (p. 2), for the exhibition of varieties of
Apples which was arranged at the same time at the Palace (p. 179),
and for the excursion of members of the Conference to the Commercial
Fruit Trials at Wisley, on the Saturday following.
I
CONFERENCE COMMITTEE.
Chairman.
E. A. BUNYARD, Esq., F.L.S.
Vice-Chairman.
C. G. A. NIX, Esq., V.M.H.
Professor B. T. P. BARKER, M.A. E. A. LAXTON, Esq.
H. T. BARNETT, Esq. THOMAS NEAME, Esq.
F. BOSTOCK, Esq. H. SOMERS RIVERS, Es~.
]. CHEAL, Escf., V.M.H. CUTHBERT SMITH, Esq.
J. C. F. FRYER, Esq., O.B.E. H. V. TAYLOR, Esq., B.Sc., O.B.E.
R. G. HALTON, Esq., M.A., C.B.E., P. DEBELL TUCKETT, Esq. "
V.M.H.
The Council desires to place on record its appreciation of the efforts
which enabled the Conference and Exhibition to be arrap.ged and
carried to a successful conclusion, and especially to the Chairmen of
the meetings, the readers of papers, and to those who collected and sent
the numerous varieties of Apples which were exhibited, and which
made this Exhibition more comprehensive and representative of
British varieties of apple than any held during the past fi!ty years.
The Papers read at the Conference and the discussions following
each are printed in this Report, and in addition some papers on ~elated
matters have been interpolated so as to make the Report as generally
useful as possible. For full list see Contents.
2 CONFERENCE ON APPLES AND PEAaS.
The programme of the Conference was as follows:
FIRST SESSION.
Wednesday, September 19, 1934, at 3 p,M.
Chairman.
The Lord ABERCONWAY, Preside,nt, R.H.S.
1. Opening Address: The Lord ABERCONWAY (p, 3).
2. "Winter Pruning of Apples, Pears and Plums" : Mr. J. WILSON
(P·7)·
3. "Summer Pruning of Hard Fruits": Mr. A. H. LEES, M.A.
(p. 14)·
SECOND SESSION.
Thursday, September 20, 1934. at II A.M.
Chairman.
Sir FREDERICK KEEBLE, M.A., Sc.D., F.R.S., F.L.S.
4. "The Basis of Classification of Apples and Pears": Mr. E. A.
BUNYARD, F.L.S. (p. 47).
THIRD SESSION.
Thursday, September 20, 1934, at 3 p.M.
Chairman.
Sir JOHN RUSSELL, D.Sc., F.R.S.
5. Orchard Factors affecting Fruit Quality" : Dr. T. WALLACE
II
(p. 98).
FOURTH SESSION.
Friday, September 21, 1934, at II A.U.
Chairman.
Sir WILLIAM G. LOB}OIT, O.B.E., J.P., V.M.H.
6. "The Fruit Trials at Wisley": Sir DANII'L HALL, K.C.B.
(p. 121).
7. "New Varieties of Apples and Pears": Mr. A. N. RAWES
(p. 126).
8. " The Fruit the Public Wants": Mr H. L. TP.YLOR (p. 136).
'FIFTH SESSION.
,.,,+ Friday, September 21, 1934, at 3 P.M.
Chairman.
Mr. SPENCER W. MOUNT.
9. "Pears from a Commercial Aspect": Mr. THOMAS NEAME
'b (p. 146).
10. • ," Stocks for Pears": Mr. R. G. HATTOl'<, M.A., V.M.H.
(p. 154)·
II. "Storage of Apples": Dr. KIDD and Dr. WEST (p. 167).
THE CONFERENCE• . '
~. THE CONFERENCE. ... ·
OPENING ADDRESS.
By the Lord ABERCONWAY, President, R.H.S.
I RISE formally to open this Conference on Apples and Pears, and my'
first duty is to express the debt of gratitude that the Royal Horticultural
Society bears, and indeed that all growers should bear, to the Confer
ence Committee whose Chairman, Mr.BuNYARD, is here with us to-day,
and to those who have taken the trouble to prepare the Papers which
are to be read and who are willing to give their knowledge so generously
for the common good. Those of you who have read the Programme
will acknowledge that the Papers will be of interest to the com
mercial grower, to the amateur grower and also to the professional
gardener.
This is not the first Conference of its kind. To be strictly accurate,
I presume that the first conference on apples took place in the Garden
of Eden, and, of course as you know, it was disastrous. I would point
out those were the days before science entered into the cultivation of
apples. If an appropriate winter wash had been used I am informed
by experts that the serpent would have been controlled in the egg
stage. The march of science has been considerable since then, and I
believe the only snakes now seen in apple trees are seen by those
who have drunk too deeply of some of the more potent forms of
cider.
Undismayed by the result of that first unfortunate precedent, the
Royal Horticultural Society held a great Apple Conference, the
National Apple Congress of 1883, in their grounds at Chiswick. That
was a very successful affair. An excellent Report was published
entitled" British Apples." It was very soon sold out, but many of
you no doubt possess it. Then in 1888, five years later, the Royal
Horticultural Society had a National Apple and Pear Conference which
was also successful. In 1905 a Conference was held which dealt
mainly with transport questions. Transport questions were more
acute in those days. Nowadays railway companies have an increasing
appreciation of the importance of the fruit industry, and of the fruit
traffic, and with, perhaps, the added stimulus of motor competition
have greatly improved the transport conditions. The pext event of
importance fathered by the Royal Horticultural Society was the estab
lishment in 1922 of the Joint Fruit Testing Committee, a Committee
partly representing the Board of Agriculture and partly representing
the Royal Horticultural Society The Board of Agriculture gave a
grant and when the Committee met in 1922 under the Chairmanship
4 CONFERENCE ON APPLES AND PEARS.
of our old friend who has done so much for fruit culture, Sir WILLIAM
LOB]OIT, their objects were very well expressed as follows;-
" The primary object in the testing of new varieties of fruit
is to show their potential values for market purposes in order to
bring prominently before growers varieties of exceptional promise
at the earliest possible moment, and to afford an opportunity to
them to see them growing on a sufficient scale. Other objects
are to define the characters of varieties under trials and to com
pare them with known varieties, so that accurate descriptions
may be made, synonyms determined and the nomenclature of the
fruits made more exact."
That original statement of the objects very well sums up the work
that has been done by the Joint Fruit Testing Committee. They
planted in 1922 two acres at Wisley; in 1934 there were 38 acres
under fruit cultivation. There are now 300 varieties of hardy fruits
under trial and no fewer than 1,300 varieties in the collection of
Standard Fruit Trees. When the new varieties show sufficient promise
in the Trial Grounds at Wisley, they are grafted on different stocks
and distributed among ten sub-stations all over the country in order
that each variety may be tried out in different climatic and soil con
ditions. You will see the evidence of that work to-day in the Hall
because the Wisley establishment is exhibiting firstly, a collection of
fruit; secondly, a collection of the new apples which are now under
trial; thirdly, a collection of the apples which have passed through
the ordeal of that first trial and have been selected for testing at sub
stations; and fourthly, apples for private gardens. In this connexion
I must congratulate those at Wisley on a further exhibit consisting of
a very large collection of apples grown all over the country with speci
mens of foliage attached, shown in order to assist people in identifying
any apples they may grow in their gardens. I should like to take this
opportunity of expressing the gratitude of the Society's Council to
those voluntary workers who have been good enough to contribute
to that collection.
Lastly, viewing the activities of the Royal Horticultural Society
in fruit matters, we have the Conference that opens to-day. I think
these activities on the part of the Society show that we appreciate
very fully how important an industry fruit-growing and apple- and
pear-growing is to-day. In 1934-1 was very much surprised at the
figure-there was in England and Wales over a quarter of a million
acres devoted to orchards, 254,700 is the precise figure. That is
without counting some 60,000 acres devoted to small fruit culture, and
without coun~ing Scotland or Northern Ireland. What is even more
interesting is, that the acreage figures of 1934, compared with those of
1~33, show an increase of no less than 5,100 acres, an increase which
is just ~ice the average increase of the two previous years.
But I would venture to suggest, that in spite of this very big growth
of fruit-growing in this country, there is room for further expansion.
THE CONFERENCE. 5
The imports of apples and pears from foreign countries are still sub
stantial, quite apart from what we get from the Dominions which
stand in rather a different category, for we import to-day no less than
one and a half million cwts. a year from foreign sources. Of course, a
certain proportion of this import, as well as a very large proportion of
the Colonial import, comes from the Southern Hemisphere, and arriving
as it does in the late Spring and early Summer, it is only to a very
small degree competitive with English produce. Indeed it is probably
rather a help to the English grower in keeping the apple habit firmly
fixed in the minds of the people.
The commercial fruit trade has made great strides in recent years,
and I think that they are very much to be congratulated on their
enterprise and their resources. They have improved their packing,
their storing, their carriage arrangements and their grading. They
produce a better product as well as more of it. I do think, however,
that one point needs more attention although I know that the subject
has been enquired into, that is, the very great discrepancy between
the wholesale and the retail price of fruit. I am not one of those who
would be disposed to grudge the retailer his fair profit. There are
various things to take into account, losses, bad debts, services, especi
ally the fact that people generally want the goods delivered at their
houses. Furthermore, there has been a general increase of retail prices
as compared with the wholesale. I t is very remarkable that two or
three years ago when wholesale prices were at their very lowest and
when the wholesale price of all food and raw material was substantially
less than it was before the War, the retail prices were something like
40 per cent. above pre-War prices, showing a very remarkable rise in
the cost of retail distribution. This general rise in the cost of living
was to some extent attributable to the fact that many of the articles
consumed were manufactured goods, such as bread, and those manu-
, factured goods have had a higher scale of wages applied to them in the
process of manufacture. Now that does not apply to fruit or apples
and pears. I t is merely the cost of distribution that has to be taken
into account, and I wish very much that more thought and attention
could be given in the interest of fruit growers to the cheapening of the
costs of distribution. If one could do that, one could get a large
additional consuming public. That potential consumer, the small boy,
is quite cold at the idea of a Ribston Pippin at 4d., or even 2d., a time,
but if you could give him his apples at five or six to the penny, in many
cases his life would be one perpetual feast.
There is one other point that I would like to mention, and that is
the great advantage that commercial fruit growers enjoy in that so
many amateurs, many of then employing highly skillod professional
gardeners, are also interested in the growing of fruit. They have, in
these amateurs, a body of very skilled men, taking a great interest 10
the question and trying out fruits in all parts of the country_ • We are
very glad indeed as a Society to do what we can to encourage the
growth of fruits by amateurs by holding a competitive Show as we do
6 CONFERENCE ON APPLES AND PEARS.
each Autumn. It is an example of what can be done in a very poor
soil if we remember that the first prize, as I have just learned, for the
commercial class of Worcester Pearmain, has been won by one whom
we do not think of as a skilled horticulturist, Mr. LLOYD GEORGE,
who grows his fruit on an extremely unfertile soil in Surrey. It is to
co-ordinate the efforts of the amateur, it is to bring before the apple
growing and the apple-eating public the results of our research at
Wisley, that this Conference has been called for 1934. I now formally
open it and wish the proceedings and the readers of the Papers every
possible success.
I have very great pleasure in calling on Mr. JAMES WILSON, a very
noted gardener, to read a Paper on the Winter Pruning of Apples,
Pears and Plums. No one who has seen his fruit can doubt that he
is very well qualified indeed to give us information on these subjects.
THE WINTER PRUNING OF APPLES, PEARS AND PLUMS. 7
THE WINTER PRUNING OF APPLES, PEARS AND PLUMS.
By J. WILSON.
IN dealing with the subject of Winter Pruning it must be borne in mind
from the onset that opinions differ considerably as to the most effective
methods. On the one hand are those who practise very hard pruning
and on the other, those who take an entirely opposite view.
One fruit grower practises a method whereby he is most successful,
yet the same treatment""under entirely different conditions might
prove unsatisfactory. Pruning cannot be carried out successfully by
rule of thumb, because the factors which govern the growth of a tree
vary considera9Jy in different localities.
If stereotyped methods could be adopted and we could definitely say
the leader can be pruned to so many inches in length and the laterals to
a given number of buds, then pruning would be an easy matter, but as
this is not possible, it must be done intelligently, taking into considera_
tion all the factors that govern it.
All who cultivate fruit trees have, or should have, one aim, the
production of good quality fruit every year.
Fruit trees are liable to make vigorous growth at the expense of
fruit, or, on the other hand, they may be stunted with little or no
growth, bearing small useless fruit. To help the inexperienced to
avoid or remedy these extremes is the aim of my lecture, and if it
be of a elementary character I trust the expert will be a little for
bearing.
It is no exaggeration to say that pruning is one of the most fasci
nating and, at the same time, most abused operations connected with
horticulture. By noting a fruit tree either in flower or carrying fruit
and the effect of the previous pruning, observation can playa most
important part in assisting to master the art of pruning. A means of
acquiring knowledge of pruning is to make oneself familiar with the
build of the various fruit trees, and probably the easiest way to become
familiar with the make-up of a tree is to remember that all forms of
fruit trees dealt with under the heading of this lecture are composed
of cordons in some form or another.
A true cordon when fully developed is more or less a straight branch
with fruiting spurs at intervals along its entire length. If all, or at
least most forms of fruit trees are comprised of cordons, ihe next thing
is to ascertain how cordons are developed.
When in the process of formation cordons are made up of parts
known as leader, laterals and spurs. •
The first thing to consider is why pruning is necessary, and its
results.