Companions Down the
Orchard Path

Tree Management

Historical Sources

Apple Varieties: Descriptions and Other Information

General Information about Apple Varieties

• Cornell's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva in cooperation with the National Germplasm Resources Laboratory's Germplasm Resources Information Network provides a database compiling apples by dozens of traits and descriptions. One of the most complete listings of apple varieties around. Comments by Roger Way and others are included. What was originally found here has been passed widely around the web, usually unattributed.
• Cornell University New York State Agricultural Experiment Station makes available online (as PDFs) its most commonly requested Food and Life Sciences Bulletins. Included are recent bulletins, but historical ones are available as well. Many are apple related, including notes on newly introduced varieties (such as Liberty, Empire, Burgundy). Back in 1979, Roger Way authored Apple Varieties Grown in New York State. It describes in depth 20 varieties and discusses more briefly some others.
• Brogdale Farm is the home of the British National Fruit Collection. Its online catalog provides descriptions and some pictures of 2000 apple varieties, including many North American apples.
• Adam's Apple, from a New England based blogger, reviews apples (over 150 at this writing) in an "opinionated catalog," and discusses related apple matters as well. One of the few places on the web to find both positive and negative comments. In 2012, Adam initiated a star system from no stars to three stars "based on their qualities eaten out of hand."
• The Orange Pippin from the UK is a site dedicated to "describing the flavours of apples and the origins of different apple varieties."
• Tom Brown of Clemmons, NC, has put his passion of lost heritage apple varieties into a guide and business called Apple Search
• Applemania is part of Chuck's Produce Talk and has a mix of small pictures and descriptions.
• Apple Journal appears not to have been updated since 2004, but on the site are good guides to apple varieties: one has descriptions and illustrations of about 80 varieties, and the one it calls comprehensive covers closer to 250 varieties, but has no illustrations. Its orchard trail section is no longer maintained.
• De Nederlandsche Boomgaard, illustrations and descriptions (translated into English) of apples from a 19th Century Dutch book.
• Backyard Orchard Culture, explained on the Dave Wilson Nursery site.

Regional Commercial and Non-profit Sites with Information about Apple Varieties

Pennsylvania & New York

• Adams County Nursery, from one of the most productive apple growing regions in Pennsylvania (or the country), includes a rating system in its descriptions of apples (size, keeping quality, flavor, scab and blight resistance).
• Cummins Nursery/Indian Creek Farm, Ithaca and Geneva, NY, includes descriptions, but no illustrations, of a large stock of antique, cold-hardy, and disease-resistant, cider & other unusual apples plus the standard currently popular apple and other fruit trees.
• Black Diamond Farm, Trumansburg, NY -- pictures and brief descriptions of the 32 varieties of apples they grow. In the orchard is a mix of antique and recently developed apple varieties.
• Heirloom Mid Atlantic Apples, #1 Farm, Elverson, PA, describes many of the apples grown by my great-grandfather, and many others as well.
• Descriptions of hardy apples are found at St. Lawrence (NY) Nursery website
• New York Apple Country has lots of information about apples and can be used to locate apples and orchards
• Apple Castle, between New Castle and New Wilmington, Pa., has been in the Johnston family since Lincoln was the President. Not much apple information on the website, but I grew up with a couple of the Johnston boys.

New England

• Gould Hill Orchard in Hopkinton, NH, provides picking times and descriptions of its 90 or so apples, including modern and heirloom.
• Fedco Seeds, Maine, includes descriptions and photographs of the fruit trees it sells, including many heritage apple varieties that originated in Maine.
• The Worcester Horticultural Society Tower Hill Botanical Garden maintains the Frank L. Harrington Sr. Orchard of antique apple trees. It sells scion sticks (but not every year).
• Maine Heritage Orchard, from the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, with pictures and descriptions of apples that originated in Maine.
• Nashoba Valley Winery, in Bolton, Massachusetts, has a well-illustrated, long list of apple descriptions.
• Lost Nation Orchard at Heartsong Farm in Maine is the home of Michael Phillips, one of the country's leading authorities on organic apple growing. The site includes very brief descriptions of their apples.

Midwest

• Purdue published a factsheet [pdf] of Apple Cultivars for Indiana.
• University of Missouri Extension: Ag Guide on Apples
• University of Illinois Extension: Apples and More
• Applesource, founded by the late Tom Vorbeck and based in Illinois, sells apples, rather than trees. Remaining on the site are Tom's Growing Tips which also includes excellent short descriptions of the all the wide variety of the apples.
• Tree-mendus Fruit, Eau Claire, Michigan, provides photographs and short descriptions of many different apples.
• Moore Orchards, Midland, Michigan -- see especially the essay, "How Good Were Those Old-Time Apples" which lists some apples that were, and some that weren't.
• Maple Valley Orchard, Gillett,Wisconsin: Apple Cultivars -- brief descriptions of hundreds of varieties, with hardiness zone information.
• Southmeadow, in Michigan, has a long history of supplying heritage fruit trees, and appears to have recovered from a recent business unpleasantness.
• Weston's Antique Apple Orchards from New Berlin, Wisconsin, includes a handy chart of apples with harvest dates and the post-harvest weeks when they are at their best.
• Michele Warmund, UMo Department of Horticulture describes apples adapted to Missouri in Apple Cultivars and Their Uses
• Grandpa's Orchard, from Coloma, Michigan, has descriptions, illustrations, and a little history of the fruit trees it sells. [The business "Grandpa's Orchard" and this site "My Grandpap's Apple Orchard" are totally unrelated.]

Southern US

• Creighton Lee Calhoun, Jr. Old Southern Apples, Chelsea Green: 1995. Preview only (although extensive sections viewable) available through Google Books.
• Vintage Virginia Apples, Rural Ridge Orchard, North Garden, VA, has lengthy and illustrated descriptions on many antique and modern apples.
• Big Horse Creek Farm, Lansing, NC, maintains a long list of apple variety descriptions.
• Century Farms Orchard, Reidsville, NC, includes illustrations and good descriptions of more than thirty apples, some old, some modern. I especially like the addition of quarters in the apple pictures to get a sense of size. A complete apple list with hundreds of varieties, not all available every year, is offered as a pdf.

West Coast

• Trees of Antiquity, California, both include long lists of apple varieties with iphotographs and descriptive annotations including zones, and other growing details.

UK and Ireland sites

• Keepers Nursery is a leading specialist fruit tree nursery in the UK, and its online catalogue is lengthy, well-illustrated, very descriptive, and searchable by several traits and categories.
• Fruitwise is an English Apple site maintained by "a middle aged couple who dreamed of and planted a new orchard in Hampshire, England." It includes their story, tips, photographs, and a diary.
• The Apple Farm, Cahir, Ireland, is operated by Con Traas. For information about apples, check the newsletter link.

Canadian sites

• Siloam Orchards in Ontario has good descriptions of heritage apples. Includes zone information.
• Denman Island describes its heritage apples as well.
• The Cider Press, Courtenay, B.C., offers Notes from the squeeze, concerning many topics, including recommended apple varieties, and some lists of apple descriptions salvaged from now defunct sites.

Management of Trees

Advice from Academics

• Tree Fruit and Berry Pathology New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, NY
• Homegrown Apples; Apple Tree Rootstocks, prepared by Ian Merwin, Cornell
• Penn State's Tree Fruit Production Guide covers a full range of commercial tree fruit production issues and is valuable for backyard orchardists, as well.
• Virtual Orchard, co-sponsored by Rutgers Cooperative Extension and Michigan State Cooperative Extension, provides news and information, and place for discussion.
• Malus Resources at the Geneva Repository Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Cornell University, Geneva, NY
• Fruits and Nuts, from WVU, includes pdfs on home orchard management and more specialized topics.

Organic and IPM

• OrganicA a guide to organic apple production from three university cooperation extensions
• Tree Fruit Production with Organic Farming Methods [PDF], by David Granatstein of the WSU Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources,provides a good overview.
• New York IPM Program (Cornell): Apple IPM Manual
• Cal Davis IPM includes advice and reports and some interactive resources
• Maine Apple IPM Program has pest management stuff, too.
• Tree Fruit Entomology, from Washington State, provides IPM documents covering several different issues.
• Minnesota Department of Agriculture provides a Field Guide for Identification of Pest Insects, Diseases, and Beneficial Organisms in Minnesota Apple Orchards

Historical Sources

The Apples of New York by Spencer Ambrose Beach (1905)

The Apples of New York, by Spencer Ambrose Beach (1905), became something of a Bible for apple growers. Beach was a horticulturist at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva and was known as the leading pomologist of his day. In two colorfully illustrated volumes, Beach provided as complete descriptions of apples has had ever been compiled before. The ample historical sections and list of references he provides for each apple described testifies to his research in both the field and in the library. Both volumes are available online from multiple sources:

• Cornell's Core Historical Literature of Agriculture: Volume I & Volume II
• Biodiverstiy Heritage Library: Volume I and Volume II
• Google Books: Volume I and Volume II
• Internet Archive: Volume I and Volume II
• Hathi Trust

Beach's Ratings

One key feature of Beach's descriptions was the rating for the quality of the fruit's flesh. The rating should not be considered an overall rating of the quality of the fruit nor the tree. Many highly rated apples were not commercially viable. Key defects were shy or unreliable cropping, poor keeping, and too tender for shipping. As a result, many of the top rated apples have disappeared or been almost forgotten. Beach appears to have relied on A. J. Downing or other previous pomologists for some of the ratings, since he notes for some top rated apples that "we have not seen this variety." With that caveat, here are Beach's top rated apples:

Volume I (Winter) [24 apples]:
Best: Green Newtown and Yellow Newtown. Very Good to Best: Bullock [American Golden Russet], Esopus Spitzenburg, Hubbardston, Hunt Russet, Jonathan, Lady Sweet [not Lady, aka Api], Newark Pippin, Newtown Spitzenburg, Northern Spy, Peck Pleasant, Pomme Grise, Swaar, Swazie, Tompkins King, Wagener, Westfield Seek-No-Further. Good to Best: Red Canada
Very Good to Best (with caveats): Ellsworth [but he had not seen], Evening Party [but little grown in New York], Grimes [but generally does not develop in color, size, and quality as well in New York as in more southern latitudes]; Pryor [a southern apple not well adapted to New York], White [Winter] Pearmain [a midwest apple not recommended for planting in New York].

Volume II (Summer and Fall) [10 apples]:
Best: Summer Pearmain. Very Good to Best: Autumn Sweet Swaar; Cox Orange; Dyer; Early Joe; Gravenstein; McIntosh; Mother; Primate; Victuals and Drink

Other Historical Sources

In addition to Beach's Apples of New York, these are most important historical sources:

1. William Coxe's A View of the Cultivation of Fruit Trees, and the Management of Orchards and Cider; with Accurate Descriptions of the Most Estimable Varieties of and Foreign Apples, Pears, Peaches, Plums, and Cherries, Cultivated in the Middle States of America (M. Carey and Son, 1817) was the first book published in America on apples and other fruits.
2. Andrew Jackson Downing and Samuel Downing. The Fruits and Fruit-trees of America: Or, the Culture, Propagation, and Management, in the Garden and Orchard, of Fruit-Trees Generally. The first edition of this great authority came out in 1845, being the first attempt to list and describe all the varieties of fruit known in the United States. It was revised several times by his son over then next several decades. Editions available online include Darwin's copy of the 1845 edition and some of Darwin's notes; the first revised edition from 1865; a revised edition with the title Selected Fruits from Downing's Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America (1871); and the second revised edition of 1881, but published in 1900.
3. Nomenclature of the Apple: a catalogue of the known varieties referred to in American publications from 1804 to 1904. Compiled by W. H. Ragan. Washington, D.C. : U.S. G.P.O., 1905. [Bulletin No. 56. United States. Bureau of Plant Industry.] This work is the most extensive catalogue ever compiled of named varieties of apples found in North America. It includes other names the varieties were known by and has a table to record descriptions and features.
4. U. P. Hedrick. Cyclopedia of Hardy Fruit. Macmillan, 1922. One the last comprehensive compilations of apples (or other fruit) with detailed descriptions. Available through Biodiversity Heritage Library, Hathi Trust, and Google Books. The section on apples was also published in 1913 with almost the same content as Apples, Old and New.
5. J. A. Warder. American pomology. Apples. New York: Orange Judd and Company, 1867. Warder was the first American pomologist to create an systematic classification of apple.

Here are other historical sources available online, mostly through Google Books or Cornell's Core Historical Literature of Agriculture:

• John Abercrombie. The British Fruit-gardener (Dublin: 1781). The chapter on apples names 44 varieties and provides advice on grafting, pruning, storage, and other care of apples.
• Richard Lamb Allen, revised by Lewis F. Allen. New American farm book. Orange Judd, 1908.
• Charles Baker. Practical and scientific fruit culture. Lee and Shepard, 1866.
• Liberty Hyde Bailey. The Apple Tree. New York: Macmillan, 1922. Cornell's most famous horticulturalist expounds on the history, care, biology, and an appreciation of the apple.
• Henry Ward Beecher. Plain and pleasant talk about fruits, flowers and farming. 1st ed., 1859, & 2d ed., 1874.
• British apples: report of the Committee of the National Apple Congress, October 5th to 25th, 1883.
• Bliss S. Brown. Modern fruit marketing; a complete treatise covering harvesting, packing, storing, transporting and selling of fruit. New York : Orange Judd, 1916.
• J. L. Budd, assisted by Niels Ebbesen Hansen [who prepared the chapter on apples], American Horticultural Manual, Volume II: Systematic Pomology, 1903
• M. C. Burritt. Apple growing. New York: Outing, 1912.
• Samuel Cole. American Fruit Book. Boston: 1849. With directions for raising fruit and descriptions of the best varieties. Cole was the grandson of the discoverer of the Cole's Quince.
• F. R. Elliott. Elliott's Fruit Book; Or, The American Fruit-grower's Guide in Orchard and Garden. C.M. Saxton, 1854.
• Ebenezer Emmons. Natural History of New York. Report on the Agriculture of New York, Volume III. Albany: 1851. Chapter Two, Varieties of Apples, is a 96 page synopsis of the varieties and descriptions of summer, autumn and winter apples.
• Essentials of fruit culture: Varieties of apples; Apple culture; Apple pests and injuries; Apple harvesting, storing, and marketing; Pear culture; Cherries, apricots, and quinces. Volume 124 of the International Library of Technology. International Textbook Company, 1913.
• James Fitz. The Southern Apple and Peach Culturist. Randolph & English, 1872.
• W. C. Flagg. "The Apple," found in the Missouri Yearbook of Agriculture: 1867 Annual Report. An essay covering the history of the apple, a discussion of various classification schemes, recommendations of varieties, and poetry. The essay, which begins on page 395, was based on a Wednesday evening address given by a distinguished and literate apple grower from Alton, Ill.
• John Clifford Folger & Samuel Mable Thomson. The commercial apple industry of North America. Macmillan, 1921.
• William Forsyth. Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees (1802) describes 44 varieties grown in England and enumerates 60 more.
  
• Victor Ray Gardner, Frederick Charles Bradford, and Henry Daggett Hooker. Fundamentals of Fruit Production. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1922.
• Victor Ray Gardner, Frederick Charles Bradford, and Henry Daggett Hooker. Orcharding. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1927.
• W.J. Green, Paul Thayer, and J.B. Keil. Varieties of Apples in Ohio in Bulletin of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, No. 290, 1915. Another version of the list is found in Dependable Fruit, Bulletin No. 313, 1917.
• Robert Hogg. British Pomology; Or, The History, Description, Classification, and Synonymes, of the Fruits and Fruit Trees of Great Britain. Vol.1, The Apple (1851). The most complete book on the apple when it was published, it includes descriptions of 942 apples, including North American varieties.
• E. J. Hooper. Hooper's Western fruit book: a Compendium Collection of Facts, from the Notes and Experiences of Successful Fruit Culturists, Arranged for Practical Use in the Orchard and Garden. Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co., 1857. Note: the "western states" included Kentucky and Ohio.
• George Jaques.A Practical Treatise on the Management of Fruit Trees; With Descriptive Lists of the Most Valuable for Cultivation; Adapted to the Interior of New England. Worcester: Tucker, 1849.
• Maurice Kains. Home Fruit Grower. Delamare, 1918.
• Granville Lowther and William Worthington. The encyclopedia of practical horticulture: a reference system of commercial horticulture, covering the practical and scientific phases of horticulture, with special reference to fruits and vegetables. Encyclopedia of horticulture corporation, 1914.
• Magness, J.R.Apple varieties and important producing sections of the United States: Farmers Bulletin No. 1883. U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1941
• Robert Manning. Book of Fruits; Being a Descriptive Catalogue of the Most Valuable Varieties of the Pear, Apple, Peach, Plum & Cherry, for New England Culture: Being a Descriptive Catalogue of the Most Valuable Varieties of the Pear, Apple, Peach, Plum & Cherry, for New-England Culture. Ives & Jewett, 1838.
• Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. Apple growing. 4th Edition. Wright & Potter [state printers]: 1913.
• Samuel Taylor Maynard. The Practical Fruit Grower. Orange Judd, 1909 (c1885).
• C.C. Newman.Notes on varieties of apple. South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, 1905.
• Fred Sears. Productive orcharding: modern methods of growing and marketing fruit. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1914.
• Robert Mumford Smock and Alfred Max Neubert. Apples and apple products. New York: Interscience, 1950. Available through Cornell's Core Historical Literature of Agriculture.
• John P. Stewart. The Apple in Pennsylvania; Varieties, Planting, and General Care. Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station. State College, Pa., 1910 &1914.
• Fruits of Ontario 1906. Toronto: Ontario Department of Agriculture, 1906.
• Michigan Fruit List, prepared by L.R. Taft for Bulletin 105 of the Michigan Horticultural Department, is included in the Annual report of the secretary of the State Horticultural Society of Michigan, 1894, starting on page 314.
• James Thacher. The American Orchardist: Or, A Practical Treatise on the Culture and Management of Apple and Other Fruit Trees. 2d Edition (1825). Includes both descriptions of apple varieties and the author's "Most Approved Method of Manufacturing and Preserving Cider."
  
• H. H. Thomas. The Book of the Apple. London: J. Lane, 1902.
• John Jacob Thomas. The American Fruit Culturist. W. Wood, 1875.
• Sereno Edwards Todd. The Apple Culturist: A Complete Treatise for the Practical Pomologist. Harper & Brothers, 1871.
• Frank A. Waugh.The American apple orchard: a sketch of the practice of apple growing in North America at the beginning of the twentieth century. New York: Orange Judd Company, 1908.
• Frank A. Waugh. Systematic pomology: treating of the description, nomenclature, and classification of fruits, 1914, c1903.
• Charles Scoon Wilson. The history of the apple in New York State. Master's Thesis, Cornell University, 1905.
• Linus Woolverton. The Canadian Apple Grower's Guide, 1910.

This page was created and is maintained by: John Henderson, Sage Hen Farm, Lodi, NY.
Last modified: What is normally cider pressing time, 2012
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