Apples & Man

by Fred Lape

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0442246781
• ISBN13: 9780442246785
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Natural History of Apples

This book is a natural history of apples. Its ten chapters cover the following topics: the genus Malus, the spread of the apple in North America, apple varieties, the ascendancy of mediocrity in the apple world (aka Delicious and Golden Delicious), the nightmare of standard orchard chemicals, the medical benefits of eating apples, the propagation of apples, crabapples, and apples in other parts of the world. At the end of the book are a list of apple sources, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index. Lape's style is quite accessible for general readers. He is an apple connoisseur, and he wants others to come to share his passion. He grew up on a farm in upstate New York that had many old apple trees. This early exposure to a variety of types of apples makes him extremely dissatisfied with apples such as the Delicious, which was bred for color, bearing, and shipping qualities but has virtually no taste. He is also quite concerned with the chemicals commonly used in commercial orchards, which not only poison animals, the soil, and workers, but also leave residues on your fruit that may wind up in your food. He suggests for consumers to either grown their own trees if they have a backyard, choosing heirloom varieties for taste, or, lacking a yard, purchase local apples from small farms, which will probably taste a lot better than those horrible Delicious apples on supermarket shelves. If you must purchase your apples at a supermarket, then ask the manager to carry something more exciting than Delicious- -Macintosh apples, for example, at least have some flavor. I found the chapter on apple propagation quite useful. I've been frustrated in my own yard at having 4 old apple trees that produce rather disappointing apples. I've tried planting some nice new trees in heirloom varieties, but the deer always eat them to the quick and they die within a season or two. But Lape's got me going now- -why not treat the established apple trees as root stock, and graft some tasty apples on them? And if I ever try planting new trees again, instead of hanging soap from the branches in an attempt to keep the deer away, I'll follow his suggestion and build a chicken wire fence around the tree, large enough to keep the deer away, but not so large as to make an insurmountable project out of the job. I found the book to be quite illuminating. After reading the book, I feel that I understand the story of apples and their Twentieth Century downfall much more clearly. Actually, I never really liked apples all that much (probably because I only knew the Delicious variety) until I lived in Finland for a year. During the time I was in Finland, I noticed how almost every house had at least one apple tree in the yard. And when a friend finally coerced me into tasting one of the apples off a neighbor's tree, I was blown away by the flavor- -I never knew apples had any flavor at all! But this brings up one weakness of Lape's book. Towards the end of the book