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 /":::''': _- >~ 3;>(') ··-,-:-···. .. J('~'If/-.q 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.