www.tribuneindia.com | HimachalPlus Wednesday, August 11, 2010, Chandigarh, India
by Shriniwas Joshi
Himachal is known as ‘the apple state’. The apple came here in 1870 when Captain Lee raised an orchard at Bandrol village in the Kullu valley. It was followed by Col Roreich, Captain Bannon and Johnson, who brought up orchards at Naggar, Raison and Manali, respectively. Alexander Coots, in 1887, nurtured ‘Hillock Head’, an apple orchard on the exotic varieties, at Mashobra in Shimla district. Samuel Nicholas Stokes, later Satyanand Stokes, a resident of Philadelphia (USA), raised a delicious variety of apples at Kotgarh in 1918. Maharishi Charak has mentioned it as sinchitphalaka in his treatise in the 2nd Century and in about 1100 AD. Dalhana describes ‘a ber as big as a fist and very sweet’ grown in the northern region of Kashmir, which suggests of an apple.
Amir Khusrau speaks of apple in about 1300 AD, which was given attention to by the Mughals.
Apple to India, therefore, is not a gift of the West as is generally believed. I also want to break another myth that apple was the fruit of Eve’s temptation in the Garden of Eden. It may or may not, because the Bible says, “(she took) the fruit of the tree which was in the midst of the garden”. Even the Adam’s apple in every man’s throat signifies the piece of forbidden fruit (not apple surely) stuck in Adam’s throat.
The names of Himachali apples have a foreign touch. The first and the costliest are the delicious varieties – red, royal and richard. Red was earlier called Hawkeye but when Stark nurseries of the USA bought it from the farmer Jesse Hiatt of Iowa state, it was named red delicious. Baldwin with reddish skin grows in Kullu and is slightly sour. It is very popular in New England, New York. There is a monument to this apple in Massachusetts that reads: “This monument marks the site of the first Baldwin apple tree found growing wild near here. It fell in the gale of 1815.
The apple, first known as the butters, woodpecker or pecker apple, was named after Col. Loammi Baldwin of Woburn.” Ben Davis in Kullu is known as Kali Devi and it is not known whether it has any relation with the original Ben Davis, which was popular during the 19th century in the USA.
A similar variety known as Black Ben Davis was grown in Arkansas and Virginia and, I believe, our Kali Devi is that variety. Golden delicious is a variety that I like but does not fetch much price in the market – probably because its flesh is yellow and not red. Granny Smith or Granny Ramsey Smith green apple originated in Australia in 1868. These are green, crisp, juicy and tart apples. It is grown both in Shimla and Kullu.
Jonathan is a medium-sized sweet apple with a touch of acid and has a tough but smooth skin. It is used as pollinator for the delicious varieties of apples. A popular 19th century apple, very widely grown in Europe at the time, and versatile for culinary and dessert uses is King of the Pippins, which is grown in Himachal too. McIntosh red is ready by late July or early August in Himachal. It is the superior eating apple and, in America, it finds place in children’s lunch boxes for it carries a reputation of being a healthy snack. It is native to Canada. Red gold apple is shiny red, medium in size, juicy and has light yellow flesh. Its drawback is that its size reduces as the age of the plant advances.
Red June is the first to come in the market and so fetches a good price. Yellow Newton or Ras -Pippin is a late variety. It earned its name from the story of the apple, Newton’s head, and their chance encounter that yielded the theory of gravity. As the name suggests, it is very juicy but its popularity among the apple growers is waning. There are many more varieties but I have discusses the important ones of, as Thoreau described it, the noblest of fruits called apple.
Tailpiece
An apple a day keeps the doctor away but an onion a day keeps everybody away.
Express News Service Tags : season, less rain, no hailstorm the reason Posted: Monday , Apr 26, 2010 at 2319 hrs Shimla:
Figure set to touch a record 900 tonnes; less rain, no hailstorm the reason, say experts
Cherry production in the state is likely to touch an all-time high in the current season and the estimates project that it will be double the quantity produced last year.
Due to favourable weather conditions during March and April, in the absence of hailstorms that used to badly hit the crop earlier, the production is set to touch a record 900-tonne mark. While 25 per cent of the harvest is already out, the season is set to continue till July 15.
“This year is set to get a bumper cherry crop. Orchardists in the apple belt of Kotgarh and Narkanda, who have of late shifted to large-scale cherry production, are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries,” said horticulture department research officer Daulat Ram.
The previous year’s cherry production was 419 tonnes and the figure was 698 tonnes in 2007-08.
Vikram Rawat, an orchardist in Chindi area of Karsog in Mandi district, said: “Several orchardists in Karsog have already started to reap harvests from their rejuvenated orchards. The weather has come as a boon for them.”
Rawat, however, said since the number of people experimenting with cherries is not very high in Karsog, they were facing problems in marketing the produce.
He said the sweet varieties grown in the area did not have a long shelf life. “Many people have, therefore, started shifting to tart varieties, which have a longer shelf life and the produce can wait for some time to be marketed,” sad Rawat.
The tart varieties are, however, yet to catch up with the popularity of sweet varieties that are more liked by Indian consumers.
The higher reaches of Shimla, Kullu, Mandi, Chamba, Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti have now emerged ideal for the cultivation of cherry.
The horticulture department’sestimates say at least 10,000 small and medium-scale farmers in the state have grown cherries on approximately 405 hectares as an alternative crop.
In the traditional apple belt of Shimla district, too, many orchardists have shifted to cherry.
Ramdass Chauhan, an orchardist at Ekantbadi near Matiyana, said: “With cherry, we do not have much problem meeting the required chilling hours, unlike apple. This year, in the absence of required quantity of snowfall, we were skeptical about apple production, but it spelled boon for cherry.”
“As compared to apple that requires 1,200 to 1,600 hours of chilling till March, before flowering, cherry requires less than 700 chilling hours. Of late, the cherry prices have also turned out to be more attractive, selling at Rs 100 to 120 per kg, even with a bumper crop,” said S P Bhardwaj, senior horticulture scientist at the Y S Parmar Horticulture University in Solan.
hello(); Sunday, January 3, 2010
Legacy to cherish The CMS church in Kotgarh stands as a symbol of the early missionary work in Himachal Pradesh. Though the town does not reflect strong Christian characteristics, the legacy is depicted in the church and the school, says Manpreet Kaur
KOTGARH, a small hamlet in the state of Himachal Pradesh, is around 10 km from Narkanda. Surrounded by the Himalayas, the town is famous for its apples, but a less known fact is that Kotgarh was one of the earliest mission stations of North India, the history of which is gathering dust in the mission archives. A visit to the place rekindled my interest on this neglected topic.
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Kotgarh, in the 19th century, was a part of the province of Punjab. Going back to the early establishments of mission centres, the Presbyterians from America led by Rev John C. Lowrie were among the early missions to establish their headquarters in Punjab at Ludhiana in 1834. But after a decade in 1844, it was Church Missionary Society (CMS) from England that opened its centre at Kotgarh. It became a mission station along with Simla, Kangra and Dharamsala. Kotgarh was ideally situated in terms of Christianisation.
To comment on the impact it would have, Robert Clarke, a pioneer of CMS — when he came to Kotgarh after almost 40 years of its establishment — called it as a mission on a hill “to give light to the whole country between China and the plains.”
Kotgarh grew with references like these, and by the early 20th century, the field work as described by Rev HFT Beutel comprised an area of about 2000 sq miles. In 1911, there were around seven male native Christian agents.
Kotgarh was not alien to the British establishment at the time of the ecclesiastical invasion. It had already become a station of the British army during the 1814-1816 Gorkha war. A two-storey building was erected to serve as British officers’ mess. In the coming years, the British army withdrew from Kotgarh. Some time later the missionary spirit took root. CMS at Kotgarh worked in close connection with the Berlin Ladies’ Society. Unfortunately, I couldn’t trace any literature on the latter society with regard to their activity in Kotgarh.
What draws attention while one visits the place is a church that stands in the middle of the town. Built in 1872, the CMS church is near the Army mess. Set in the rugged mountainous site, it stands out as an example of the Gothic architecture. The church, a not-so-tall building, has an apse and a tower bell. The front window has a painting of Christ. The exterior is a combination of austerity and simplicity. It was used for daily morning and evening services.
The church — now filled with mature shrubs and apple trees in its backyard — enhances the settings of what is one of the historic buildings of early mission work. Along side the church, a school was opened, and was named after Gorton, a distinguished servant in Simla. Later, it came under the mission control. The school grew gradually, and in 1886 it could boast of a substantial figure of students studying here — 13 boys and two girls.
Interestingly, some medical work was carried at Kotgarh, too. A hospital that comprised only four beds was highly beneficial to the natives and the mission societies alike. Though the hospital was not a missionary enterprise, the latter through its “care and cure” policy spread the message of gospel to the patients. They believed it would facilitate conversions .The mission reports do throw light on incidents that showed interest of the indigenous population towards Christianity.
For instance, a Brahmin, who brought his son for treatment, expressed a desire to learn about Christ. Similarly, a young man in government service with a small salary regularly gave one Re 1 a month as a thank offering for the benefit derived at the mission school. Such descriptions were pronounced but baptism was rare. There are no figures available that tell the exact statistics of the indigenous Christians of that time.
Kotgarh, with its picturesque location, soon became a summer retreat for the missionaries in the plains. Books written during the early 19th century have travelling experiences of missionaries on ponies. Dr Brown of Women’s Christian Medical College and Hospital from Ludhiana was a regular visitor who spent her early summer holidays here. A stay at Kotgarh for her meant time for learning a language like Urdu. Despite the Christian credentials of the place, Kotgarh witnessed a partial process in the spread of Christianity.
Towards the later decades of the 20th century, there was little impetus of mission work here. From this standpoint, ironically, when Samuel Stokes settled in this part of the country, he found his missionary image “unsatisfactory,” and became a Hindu to establish a rapport with Indians.
Presently, Kotgarh does not reflect strong Christian characteristics. However, the legacy of
the missionaries is depicted in the domain of the church and the school.
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