I'm sure a lot has been lost but I think that our access to so much information probably makes us better orchardists. I manage a lot of trees originally trained by our great grandparents and I assure you, a lot of orchardists of that generation did not have much of a grasp of how to train an apple tree to an efficient shape. Many of the trees I manage have too many scaffolds leading to way too much structural wood leaving inadequate space for a good ratio of small wood. I struggle to rectify the mistakes of a century ago.

This is not enough evidence to convict a generation of ignorance and those folks had self-reliance skills most of us don't have but we sure benefit from the internet.

I read the 1907 book The American Apple Orchard and was shocked by the amount of knowledge the author had about soil chemistry such as legume crops fixating nitrogen into the soil. Most parts of the book (expect spraying) could have been in any garden book today.

But dissemination of this knowledge was much more difficult then, with folks outside the industry often missing out on the advances in husbandry. Nowdays anyone in the world with an internet connection can access the cutting edge advances, and forums like this are incredible tools they could only have dreamed of. I salute them for what they did with what they had.

My would say don't look for the worm, and you will not find the worm. I don't believe they demanded the blemish free fruit the general public seems to strive for.

Of course they didn't need to produce blemish free fruit- it was beyond their technology. Old American oil paintings of bowls of fruit reveal lots of flaws. The agricultural chemical industrial complex has brought us this wonderful, poisonous standard. More poison-more profit.

I can't even convince my own family to eat much of the imperfect fruit that comes off my trees - thats how ingrained this perfection mentality is.

Scott

People often remark that I got my gardening genes from my German grandfather (and those before him), but I remember his garden and all he ever grew were turnips and potatoes.

I attended a lecture on apple growing last month. The photos they had of orchards up in the mountains of this state were amazing - not a tree in sight!! They aren't even growing apples on trees anymore, they pack a gajillion whips into an acre and grow them like a hedge. They say it is easier to manage the pest issues and harvest the crop.

Yeah, the blank stares I got from my customers this past fall when they passed over my low-spray, bagged, nearly (key word) perfect Golden Delicious apples and bought the sprayed ones down the way was disheartening. But things are changing. I did sell to thankful folks who appreciated what it took to produce a cleaner product.

The internet has made me a better gardener and orchardist, and shown me many other things that have blown away the propaganda of "conventional wisdom" that pervades our culture. But a lot of what is true and works is old-school technology that hasn't been distorted and repackaged into corp/gov propaganda to sell us something that may sound good, but in reality has less to offer than the old ways. The net has shown me all points of view, instead of getting it just from the "dictocrats", and I can decide.

I know all the experienced fruitists who posted here know this. But just to clarify, there is a difference between blemished fruit and wormy fruit. Blemished fruit (meaning superficial surface blemish) is fine, but wormy fruit will not ripen properly, and will not store. And I agree, Americans buy with their eyes.

Americans buy the way the advertising media has trained them.

Apples and everything else.

Sue

My great grandfather grew 40 apple trees per acre, forty. An acre is like the size of an American football field. Those trees were spread way out. Great big gnarly old trees. I know he simply picked a lot of apples up off the ground. Heck, we grew 108 to the acre when I was a teenager.
In those respects I don't miss the old days.

Many old (early 20th Cent.) popular horticultural and agricultural books can be bought used at very reasonable prices.

When you find an author or title, the following consortium of used book dealers can easily find you the book.
www.abebooks.com

The once-famous and still fun to read author MG Kains's book "GROW YOUR OWN FRUIT" contains a lot of brief looks back to how orcharding was practiced and changed from the 1870s (his grandfathers in Ontario Province) to ca. 1940 (his decades in NY state and Pennsylvania). He taught at Penn State and wrote many books. His style is writing style is personal and pointed but very informative. His brief denunciations of the lesser pears (particularly Keifer) are classic.

There are certain canning lessons, as well as how to use less than prime fruit. Since my mother was born in a farmhouse which got electricity when she was 5, here are some:

- blemished apples can be peeled and diced (bad parts thrown away) and cooked down in a bit of water until soft.
I luv apples cooked this way, specially with some cranberries mixed in.

- She says that back then, without any pesticide, a good fraction of the apples managed to be good. Anyway, due to a lack of fruits in the cold season, all of the blemished apples not cooked as above would end up in mixed jams. These days, she prefers to mix pears in her jams, plum-pear and grape-pear, cooked for much longer than usual, till they are a bit smoky. Delicious.

- unblemished grape bunches, hung from the ceiling in cool, dark cellars, would last until Christmas

- of course you all know about root cellars and separate apple cellars

Now, if I were to describe how to eat every part of a pig, I would be castigated for going off topic. But feel free to ask.

I've given a link below to a downloadable copy of Kains's book "Home Fruit Grower". I'm not sure this is the same book gonebananas mentioned, but it is by the same author (it might be an earlier work). There is a lot of good information in this and other books of this era, with the exception of pesticide recommendations, which are completely out of date and often dangerous.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kains Home Fruit Grower

That book is the 1918 edition and may even be better for the interests of the original poster. The one I referred to is ~1940 but obviously built upon this one. I wasn't aware of this earlier version of the book until yesterday.

Great source. Thanks. Much old uncopyrighted horticultural and agricultural and forestry literature is now making it to the Net, and in intentional mass efforts not simply hodgepodge. It really is a help.

Michael. My great grandfather was an orchardist in the same county. I live near New Concord, but my g'grandfather's orchards were on the S.E. section of the county. I do historical and genalogical research too, and am so curious as to whom your G'grandfather was. I can understand not wanting to put our your name on the inet, but I'd love to know who your g'grandfather was. I had farming ancestors in the same township as your g'grandfather, and my son owns a farm near there. Too cool.