ple-tree is very small; it is a true dwarf. The Doucin trees are by
nature larger, and apples grafted on them make semi-dwarf trees,
midway in stature between the real dwarfs and the common standard or
"free" apple-trees.

The case is not so simple, however, as this brief statement would make
it appear. There are many kinds of Paradise stock, as also of Doucin.
If one were to bring together living plants of all the kinds of
natural dwarfs and semi-dwarfs that could be found in nurseries and
growing collections, one would undoubtedly find a nearly complete
series, so far as stature of tree is concerned, from the very dwarf to
the full-sized standard tree. To say that a person is growing grafted
dwarf apple-trees does not signify how large the trees may be expected
to grow, for one may not know the particular kind of stocks on which
the variety is grafted. In fact, it is considered even in Europe,
where dwarf apples are chiefly grown, that the proper identification
of dwarf stocks is still a subject for careful investigation.

When the Paradise dwarfs first came into existence is undetermined.
They appear to have been known in the Middle Ages. The many races, as
the Dutch, French, Metz, Nonsuch, Broad-leaved, indicate an ancient
origin. We cannot be too certain what apple-trees were meant in the
early references to the Paradise apple. The fruits of the present
natural Paradise apple-trees are not sufficiently attractive to
justify us in considering them the "Tree of Paradise" or apple of the
Garden of Eden, which circumstance is supposed by some to account for
the name. "Paradise" was originally a park or pleasure ground, applied
also to the Garden of Eden, and later to horticultural gardens. John
Parkinson wrote his great treatise on horticulture, 1629, under the
title, "Paradisi in Sole Paradisus terrestris; or, a Choice Garden of
all Sorts of Rarest Flowers, etc." Now we use the word for gardens of
bliss.

The word Doucin, from the Italian, is supposed originally to have
designated apples of sweet flavor, but it now applies technically to a
class or race of semi-dwarf apple-trees.

For the purpose of this little book, however, the interest in the
dwarf apple centers not so much in the origin of the stock as in the
natural-history of the tree itself and the good skill of hand and
heart that one may expend in the growing of it. If one would come
close to a plant, knowing it intimately in every season, causing it to