Sorbus , a large tree which grows in the temperate climate of Europe and may be found in woods but is less common than other forest trees which thrive in the same climate. The service tree has a fine stem which is long, straight, smooth, and proportionately broad. Its branches, which intertwine and support each other, form a fairly regular crown. Its thick, strong roots are taprooted rather than spreading. The bark is tawny-coloured on the shoots of one year. The branches develop whitish flecks when they are one inch in diameter which spread and cover the wood when it becomes as broad as one’s arm. However, when the wood grows further, the bark darkens due to the fissures which rip it and make it fall in shreds. The pinnate leaves are composed of thirteen or fifteen oblong or dentate leaflets which are villous and whitish beneath. In May, the tree produces dense clusters of dull, white flowers. The fruit which follows usually looks like a small pear but varies in shape and even in colour and flavour according to the species. It ripens differently from other fruit: the service-apples soften only once they are picked, by contracting a sort of rot which makes them palatable. But this tree is far more prized for the excellent quality of its wood, the solidity, strength, and durability of which make it sought after for a host of uses for which such properties are vital.

Because the wood is extremely compact and hard, it forms more slowly than that of other trees. When the service tree is raised from seed, it reaches a height of approximately two feet only after four years, whereas willows, poplars, large maples, planes etc. grow up to twelve feet during the same period. Therefore, the service tree grows six times more slowly than large, fast-growing trees. In nature, everything works in harmony: the slow development of this tree affects its rate of fructification more or less proportionately; it rarely bears fruit before it is thirty years old, whereas other large trees produce most of their fruit after seven years. Moreover, there is no doubt that the quality of its wood enables this tree to withstand unseasonable weather: Angran, who has studied agriculture, reports that the great winter of 1709 did not affect it adversely. [1] The service tree justly ranks as one of the world’s great trees. It often grows to over fifty feet, and I have seen some with girths of up to seven feet in soil which was suited to them.

The service tree likes heavy, silty, solid, and even clayey soil, cool, damp, open places, and a northerly aspect. It grows fairly well in any cultivated soil, but soil which is too dry and sites which are too warm are unsuited to it, and prevent it from thriving and bearing fruit unless it has been raised from seed.

This is the most suitable method of propagating the service tree. One may also layer or graft it, but these modes are not very successful, and if one wishes to obtain a good number of seedlings and even some varieties the only appropriate method is sowing. One may begin as soon as the fruit has ripened, that is, when it is sufficiently rotten, or wait until spring, carefully preserving the service-apple pips in the interim in sand in a dry place. They do not usually come up until the following spring. Two years later, they will be about one foot tall and may be placed in a tree nursery, where they should be trained like pear seedlings. After four years, they will have grown to a height of four feet, but even then it will be as long again before they are ready to be transplanted. Therefore, even when these seedlings have been assisted by sustained cultivation, one cannot expect them to be the least bit strong until ten or twelve years after they have been sown.

However, since the service tree takes again following transplantation more readily than perhaps any other tree, the quickest way of procuring seedlings is to uproot some in the woods. This saves much time, since they may be transplanted even when they are large. I have seen some thriving in M. de Buffon’s plantations on his estate in Burgundy which were at least twenty-five feet tall, with girths of over one foot. [2] Even then, they do not bear fruit for about another ten years. Although these trees take again readily following transplantation, one cannot form an instant forest by filling uncultivated land with them: they would thrive for a year, but after two or three years their growth would diminish increasingly until they grew only from the base, at which point they would have to be cut back. Therefore, these transplanted trees need a half-cultivation such as may be given to vineyards, enclosures, ploughable land, etc. However, when the service tree is raised from seed on site, it thrives almost anywhere without cultivation.

This tree may be grafted on to apples and pears, where it rarely takes again, on to wild quinces (Evelyn), and particularly on to hawthorns, where according to Porta it generally thrives. As the service tree is most widespread in Italy, one may rely on this author, who was a Neapolitan. [3] This tree can also serve as a rootstock for grafting pears which do not thrive readily, and wild quinces and hawthorns which take again more readily but are of indifferent quality.

Service-apples are not without use: they may be eaten from mid- autumn, as soon as the fermentation of the rotting fruit has sweetened their bitter juice. Poor country dwellers sometimes make a drink from them and even grind some of the dried fruit with their wheat when it is covered with ryegrass, in order to attenuate its ill effects. [4] See Service-apple.

Service tree wood is reddish, compact, heavy, and extremely hard. It is solid, tough, and durable, and is consequently sought after for a whole host of uses. It is excellent for joinery and for making pulleys, wine-press screws, headstocks, guide poles, and small windmill parts. It is also suitable for wood engraving. Armourers use it for mounting weapons, and joiners prefer it for the handles and frames of their tools. This wood is rare and expensive, though most of the branches can be used because it has no sapwood.

Here are the best-known species or varieties of service tree to date. [5]

Service-tree cultivar: this is most commonly found in enclosures and properties.

Service tree with pear-shaped fruit, service tree with oval fruit: the fruit of these two trees are the driest and bitterest. [6]

Red-fruited service tree: these service-apples are larger and taste better than those described above.

Service tree with reddish fruit: this fruit is as large as that of the preceding tree but has a poorer flavour.

Service tree with small, red fruit: this fruit is less velvety and appears later than that of other service trees; it is consequently not very palatable.

Service tree with very small fruit: although the fruit of this tree is the smallest, it has quite a pleasant flavour.

Levant service tree with leaves resembling those of the ash; Levant service tree with large, yellowish fruit: these two trees are so rare that they are still known only from the accounts of Tournefort, who discovered them during his voyage to the Levant. [7]

Wild service, or fowler’s service tree. [8] This species differs markedly from those described above, especially the first seven, which are distinguishable only due to variations in climate and terrain. This service tree is smaller than the others, it produces larger leaves earlier in spring, and its verdure is more delicate and pleasant. It is early- flowering, and its parasol-shaped flowers are whiter and more beautiful, while their scent carries over a distance. Its fruit differs even more: the berries, which are of a brilliant yellow-red, are striking in autumn; although they have an unpleasant flavour and are bad for the digestion, they are so sought after by some birds which relish them that this tree draws them, serving particularly to lure them. It grows more quickly, propagates more easily, and fruits earlier. It withstands cold climates even as far north as Lapland. It grows in nearly all soil types, and thrives equally well in marshes and on mountain ridges. This tree may even be used for ornamentation: it is the first to display, from March, a rich foliage which, combined with the large, parasol-shaped flowers which come up at the end of April and the fruit which looks so beautiful in autumn, should earn it a place in the finest bosquets.

It can be raised from seed sown in October, which will come up the following spring. It may also be propagated by grafting, which I have seen take again perfectly on the hawthorn, though it grows to only twelve or fifteen feet, this being far smaller than when it is raised from seed. Mr Miller states that he has seen some in several English counties which are almost forty feet tall by two feet in diameter, but that elsewhere this tree grows to only twenty feet. [9] It has a slender, upright stem with a fine, smooth bark which is mostly fawn-coloured. Its wood is prized by wheel-wrights and others because it is all heartwood and is almost as hard as common service-tree wood.

Most French authors who have written on agriculture have frequently assigned the name ‘sorb’ to the service tree and used these two names indifferently. Would it not improve our understanding if ‘service tree’ were used only with reference to the first nine trees listed above and ‘sorb’ to the last, since it differs so palpably from the rest?

Notes

1. Angran de Rueneuve, 1712. On the winter of 1709, see article ‘Arbre (le jardinier)’, n. 127.

2. Buffon was born in Montbard, Burgundy, where he settled following his travels in Europe. From 1740, he travelled from Paris to Montbard each spring. Buffon was a close friend of Daubenton’s and was godfather to Daubenton’s son Georges-Louis (Huxley et al., 1992, i.412; Kafker and Kafker, 1988, pp. 92-3).

3. Giovanni Battista della Porta ( c. 1535-1615) was a Neapolitan naturalist who wrote an agricultural encyclopaedia entitled De Humana Physiognomonia (1586). The prolific writer John Evelyn (1620-1706) translated several French gardening books into English, notably La Quintinie, 1690, which he published as The Compleat Gard’ner in 1693. See also Evelyn, 1664 (Huxley et al., 1992, ii.272).

4. The drink is service-apple cider. The species of Lolium, or ryegrass, to which Daubenton refers is probably the toxic Lolium temulentum, or darnel, which was a common weed and contaminant of grain crops in pre-twentieth-century Europe (Harris, pers. comm.).

5. There are 193 species of Sorbus. Daubenton’s general description applies to Sorbus domestica (Harris, pers. comm.). See D. J. Mabberley, The Plant-book: a Portable Dictionary of the Vascular Plants (Cambridge, 1997), 671.

6. These trees are Sorbus domestica forma pyriformis and Sorbus domestica forma pomifera (Harris, pers. comm.).

7. In 1700, Pitton de Tournefort, who was Professor of Botany at the Jardin du Roi from 1683, was sent by Louis XIV on a scientific voyage to Europe and Asia Minor, which is recounted in Pitton de Tournefort, 1717. The two trees in question are listed in Pitton de Tournefort, 1703, p. 43.

8. This is Sorbus aucuparia, otherwise known as rowan, mountain ash, or quickbeam, not Sorbus torminalis, the chequer tree or maple cherry. The name ‘wild service tree’ has been applied to both species (Harris, pers. comm.; Mabey, 1996, p. 204).

9. Miller states that he has seen the tallest specimens in the northern counties, Shropshire, and Wales (article ‘ Sorbus ’, Miller, 1752).