East of Eden...
Kirghizia lies among the slopes of the Tien Shan or 'Heavenly Mountains', which form the boundary between Western China and the former Soviet Union.
It was in this remote area that the shepherds used to
tell a story of the forests of wild fruit trees which,
legend claimed, were the remains of a great orchard that
stretched in antiquity from China to the shores of the Caspian.
It is here that the origins of the domestic apple are to
be found.
In the 1920's
, when the Russian plant geneticist, Nicolai Vavilov first surveyed the forests of wild fruit trees, he found
scenes evocative of 'the Garden of Paradise' with fruits so good that 'they might be merely removed
to an orchard...'.
The travel writer Vitkovitch,
in 1960 , after visiting Kirghizia,
described camping on the edge of apple groves, pursuing
mountain turkeys through clusters of nut trees and
watching porcupines disappear into plum thickets. 'In
a word',
he wrote, 'this
was life in a marvellous garden of wonders such as are
described in fairytales, a marvellous garden where
apples and pears look down at you from the trees and beg
to be eaten, where a magic wind brings you showers of
nuts, where birds are radiantly feathered and animals
trustful and the imprints of bears paws to be seen on
the paths'...
Even today large areas of wild fruit trees can still be
found in the foothills of the Caucasus,
the Kopet-Dag mountains in Turkmenistan,
in the Pamirs and especially in the Tien Shans where there are areas in which wild apple trees dominate
the landscape.
The wild apple trees in the forest spread out as the
fruits were eaten by birds, and animals including
horses, bears and humans. Both animals and humans chose
the largest juiciest fruits carrying them further afield.
Local people bartered apples for other goods brought by
traders and travellers who then took the apples even further afield.
These wild forests lay close to ancient trade, nomadic
and migration routes allowing the spread of fruit trees
way beyond their home land and it was on the discovery
of grafting that much of the subsequent history of the domestic
apple depends. Expertise in this ancient art ensured
that the best varieties have been conserved for
centuries and that enables us to grow the apples enjoyed
by our ancestors.
Now for perhaps the first time in history these heritage
varieties and their progeny are available to everyone.
THE NURSERY
'In 1973 my family bought a very old orchard in the
Adelaide hills, mostly heritage apple varieties,
picturesque old trees thriving in a fertile valley. That
was the beginning of the journey that led me to the
growing of a heritage fruit tree nursery. The old
orchard still exists, now growing wild, a highly unusual
situation in the midst of a classic apple growing
district. Old trees hollowed out, some fallen over and
still bearing, and now with the disappearance of the
rabbits seedlings are coming up, new varieties to be
trialled and possibly to find their way into gardens
across the country. Every autumn I travel over there to
pick wild apples and taste and assess these new seedling
varieties.
I'll
keep you posted regarding availability of any of these
new trees'.
Paragraphs freely quoted
from 'The New Book of Apples' - Joan Morgan/Alison
Richards/Elizabeth Dowle
(Ebury Press; Revised edition (February 19, 2003)
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infringement of copyright is intended or implied by the
author of this site and no liability will be entertained
in regards to charges of plagiarism or copyright
infringement.
