Here’s an interesting story of an enterprising Mr. W., who knew how to set apple scions, and took advantage of the skepticism toward grafting named apple varieties to seedling trees. We’ve found other accounts of this skepticism. It seemed to be prevalent during the first half of the 19th century. This was a time when many “old timers” felt inclined to continue tending their cider orchards of random un-named seedling trees. Cider orchards had a good history of profit, and it was hard for these old orchardists to accept change. Particularly when that change involved a cost: the cost of grafting named varieties or hiring someone to complete the grafting for them.
The New England Farmer and Boston Rambler
Boston, Saturday, March 8, 1851
Some Facts about Orchards in New England.
By Henry P. French, of Exeter, N. H.
How strange it is, that no more attention is paid in New England to raising Fruit, as a regular source of profit! An instance of Yankee shrewdness has recently come to my knowledge, which well illustrates the advantages of knowing something on this subject. In the spring of 1816 a Mr. W. was engaged in grafting apple trees, in various parts of Rockingham county, and with the rest, grafted enough to amount to about twelve dollars, for Mr. R., of Braintree, upon an old orchard of natural fruit consisting of about one hundred trees. Mr. R. thought it rather extravagant to expend so much in an experiment so hopeless, and W. finally proposed that he would go on in subsequent years, and graft as many of the old trees as he chose, do the necessary pruning, and receive for his pay one-half the fruit that should grow on his grafts during the next twelve years, and R. should cultivate the land among them, for his own profit. This was considered a very liberal proposition, and at once accepted, and the contract was reduced to writing, and executed.
I happened to be at Brentwood during the past autumn, just after W. had called for his share of the fruit and learned that the scions set in 1846, for which, he had charged twelve dollars, produced sixteen barrels of marketable Baldwin Apples, worth twenty-four dollars. Mr. R. had become so far convinced of his mistake that he offered W. one hundred dollars to release his interest in the orchard, which W. promptly declined. I soon afterwards met W., and conversed with him on the subject, and he said that so far from releasing his interest in the contract, for that sum, he would not sell his share of the fruit for one year, for that amount, and allow the purchaser to choose it out of the term.
He has now grafted most of the trees with the Baldwin Apple, and thinks he shall get more than a hundred dollars a year, in each of the even years of the last half of his term. The even year is, as you well know, the bearing year for the Baldwin, throughout New England. Mr. W. further informs me, that he has made many similar contracts in the neighborhood, and has acquired an interest in about one thousand trees; that his share of apples, grown on land of other people, the past fall, was ninety barrels, and that none of the scions which produced were set prior to 1815. He grafted one tree in 1844, which produced in 1850 six barrels of fruit, and that he knows fifty trees which this year produced ten barrels each, worth in all, $750.
One thing about growing fruit that is different from other agricultural pursuits, is that most fruit is grown on trees. And these trees are already several years old before they start producing. Season after season we care for them, and they pay us back. It’s understandable that an orchardist can get emotionally tied to his/her trees. So, I do have some sympathy for the old-time apple grower who had a nice old orchard of productive seedling trees, and didn’t want to give up on them. But according to Henry French, profit is what we grow apples for. And the numbers don’t lie.
