A basket of brightly coloured, delicious-looking Newton Pippins.
PHOTO: DERRICK LUNDY
Some “great moments in apple history” compiled by Mitch Lynd:1
6500 BC: Remains of apples found among excavations at Jericho in the Jordan Valley are dated to this time period.
5000 BC: Feng Li, a Chinese diplomat, gives up his position when he becomes consumed by grafting peaches, almonds, persimmons, pears, and apples as a commercial venture, according to The Precious Book of Enrichment.2 Agriculturalists are charmed; naturalists are alarmed.
1500 BC: A tablet found in northern Mesopotamia records the sale of an apple orchard by Tupkitilla, an Assyrian from Nuzi, for the significant sum of three prized sheep.
1665 AD: Sir Isaac Newton watches an apple fall to the ground and, wondering why it falls in a straight line, is inspired to discover the laws of gravitation and motion.
I met apple history head on as I meandered through a 140-year-old orchard on a sunny afternoon in late September. The thick-trunked trees soared above me, unencumbered by the dwarfing techniques of modern apple growing, some of them completely hollow inside and yet still producing apples, as their life force is contained in the cambium layer inside the bark. I thought of the history that had travelled past these trees, from pioneers clearing the land, building shacks, and carving out their simple livelihoods, to the people of today, driving by in sleek cars, with smartphones and GPS and tablet computers. I imagined the progression of dialogue that had swirled under these limbs, the changing and not-so-changing worries and wonders expressed. (For example, I picture lovers from different eras parting beneath the canopy, one whispering, “Goodbye, shall we meet here next week?,” the other saying, “Later. Text me.”)
But then my mind’s eye went even further back, trying to imagine how the wild apple orchards of Kazakhstan must appear. There, with no influence of cultivation, the apple trees apparently grow to sixty feet tall and host a sweeping array of apple shapes, ranging in size from marbles to softballs, and in colour from yellow, to green to red and even purple. The vista must be otherworldly, like something from the pen of Lewis Carroll.
As a lover of the wild apple, Henry David Thoreau would have appreciated it. In an 1862 essay commissioned by The Atlantic and called “Wild Apples,” he enthused, “I love better to go through the old orchards of ungrafted apple-trees, at whatever season of the year—irregularly planted: sometimes two trees standing close together; and the rows so devious that you would think that they not only had grown while the owner was sleeping, but had been set out by him in a somnambulic state.” 3
A 150-year-old Lemon Pippin tree still produces fruit at Woodside Farm in Sooke, BC. In the background is one of two remaining houses built in 1884 by John and Ann Muir, who obtained land from Sooke pioneer Captain Grant when he returned to Britain in 1853.
Russian botanist Nicolai Vavilov is credited in the early 1930s with identifying the birthplace of the apple as Alma-Aty (or Almaty), Kazakhstan, in eastern Asia, near the western border of China. (However, translated into English, Alma-Aty means “father of the apple,” so someone earlier must have had an inkling of what was going on.) Vavilov’s research sank amid politics in the Soviet Union and it wasn’t until decades later that his work was extended by scientists such as Dr. Barrie Juniper and others, from the Plant Sciences Department of Oxford University.
Juniper, who co-authored The Story of the Apple 4 with his student David J. Mabberley, made several trips in the 1990s to the huge wild-fruit forests on the mountain slopes near Alma-Aty, as well as in neighbouring Uzbekistan and other areas in eastern Asia. The Oxford University research occurred alongside work undertaken by a team of Cornell University scientists, who collected specimens from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan for the Plant Genetic Resources Unit at Geneva, New York (the site of the largest apple, grape, and cherry repository in the world).
DNA studies confirmed that the cultivated apple had its origins in Kazakhstan. As summarized in Juniper’s article “The Mysterious Origin of the Sweet Apple,” 5 the apples in this isolated area—surrounded by mountains and deserts—evolved by natural selection from tiny fruit eaten and distributed by birds and small animals into bigger, sweeter fruits attractive to larger wild mammals such as pigs, bears, and horses. These animals spread the seeds throughout the Middle East along animal migration tracks, which later became trade routes known as Silk Roads.
Apples were further spread along these routes by human travellers, who picked the largest and tastiest of the wild-growing apples to carry west with them, dropping seeds along the way. Wild seedlings would have grown and hybridized with other species such as the European crab, eventually producing apples throughout Asia and Europe.
But true cultivation didn’t occur until the invention of grafting, which allowed the Romans and Greeks to select and propagate the best varieties. By the first century AD, the Romans had cultivated twenty-three types of apples, some of which they took to England. The Lady apple is thought to be one of these.
After apple-growing came to England and France via the Romans, it spread to North America with the colonists in the seventeenth century. The first apple orchard in America was said to be near Boston in 1625, the first US commercial trade began in the 1740s with exports to the West Indies, and by 1871 the fame of the Newton Pippin, an apple discovered in a Flushing, New York, cider orchard, had already spread to Europe.
The earliest immigrants to America brought grafted old trees with them, but many of these did not thrive in the North American climate. The colonists also planted seeds saved from apples eaten during their Atlantic voyage and some of those seedlings—called pippins—eventually prospered.
Mike and Marjorie Lane have been managing Ruckle Farm since 1990. They aim to run it in the same way as the homesteading Ruckle family did, raising sheep and lambs, cows, hens, and turkeys, and growing hay. They also harvest and sell numerous varieties of heritage apples.
PHOTO: DERRICK LUNDY
One the most colourful figures emerging from this time was the larger-than-life John Chapman (AKA Johnny Appleseed), credited with planting over ten thousand square miles of trees between Pennsylvania and Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he died in 1845. Stories over the years have elevated Chapman to legendary status, claiming he travelled barefoot, wore a saucepan as a hat, preached the word of the Swedenborgian Church, cared deeply about animals (including insects), and was, in fact, kind and generous to all.
The best reading, when it comes to Chapman, is from Michael Pollan, who, in The Botany of Desire, sets out on Chapman’s trail, determined to find the truth amid the “Disneyfication” of the legend. Today, Pollan says, the apples and the man have suffered a similar fate in the years since they travelled down the Ohio River together in a double-hulled canoe. “Both then had the tang of strangeness about them, and both have long since been sweetened beyond recognition . . . Chapman transformed into a benign Saint Francis of the American frontier, the apple into a blemish-free, plastic red saccharine orb.” 6
Chapman did not spread apple seeds randomly everywhere he went. Instead, he deliberately moved west, keeping ahead of settlers, and planting nurseries in wilderness areas he believed suitable for settlement. When the settlers arrived, he had trees ready to sell. In some areas, settlers were required by law to plant orchards as a condition of their land deeds, the goal being to prevent speculation by encouraging homesteaders to stay in one place. Since a standard apple tree could take ten years to fruit, an orchard was seen as a mark of permanency.
Popular mythology around Johnny Appleseed also skirts the “point” of all these apples. As Pollan notes, apples grown from seed are rarely sweet or tasty; people who wanted edible apples grafted trees of their choice. Chapman’s seedlings mostly produced sour apples, used almost exclusively for cider, the most common beverage of the time, even for children.
“Apples were something people drank,” Pollan says. “Johnny Appleseed was actually bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier.” 7
Cider could be made by anyone with a press and a barrel, and even Puritans were able to give it a “theological free pass,” notes Pollan, since the Bible’s Old Testament warns against the temptation of grapes, but says nothing about the apple or the strong alcoholic drinks that can be made from them. “America’s inclination towards cider is the only way to explain Chapman’s success.” 8
In addition to cider making, apples were an excellent commodity for early settlers since they stored well and had many uses. They could be made into apple butter and apple pies, or cored and dried for even longer storage.
So apples moved west with the settlers. In 1824, Captain Aemilius Simmons brought seeds to Fort Vancouver in Washington: now, with the advent of irrigation technology in the twentieth century, Washington is the top-producing apple state in the US.
In Canada, apples arrived with the French, early in the seventeenth century. Apples may have been grown at Port Royal in Nova Scotia as early as 1606, and it’s certain that varieties were growing near Annapolis Royal by the 1630s. Early records also show that apple trees existed in LaHave, Acadia, by 1635. In The Apple: A History of Canada’s Perfect Fruit, 9 author Carol Martin says Samuel Champlain brought young saplings for planting when he landed in 1608 at the “point of Quebec” and constructed the first buildings of what later became Quebec City. Gardening was one of Champlain’s passions.
However, during this time apples were grown mostly by the Acadians—a 1698 census counted 1,584 apple trees at Port Royal alone. Like their American counterparts, most of these early apple growers used the bulk of their fruit for cider.
Canada’s first known cultivar, Fameuse (also known as Snow), has been grown in Québec for centuries and is possibly the parent of McIntosh. It arose from seed or possibly a young seedling brought from Normandy, France, during this time. From the mid-1700s to the 1850s, Fameuse was the most common apple tree grown in Canada, and the fruit was exported to England in large quantities. For some unknown reason, a massive destruction of Fameuse apple trees occurred in Quebec orchards in the 1860s, reports Canadian apple enthusiast Eric Rivardon on the comprehensive heritage apple website orangepippin.com, and new varieties were introduced, such as Wealthy, Baldwin, and some species from Russia.
Crabapples are the only variety of apples native to North America. These are Dolgo apples, grown in Edmonton. According to Gabor Botar, they are the “best crabapple for jelly.”
PHOTO COURTESY GABOR BOTAR
According to Carol Martin, apples first arrived in the west of Canada via seeds tucked into the vest pocket of Governor George Simpson, who oversaw the merging of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Northwest Company in 1821.
“Why were apples so desirable? For early immigrants, they provided a sweet and healthy addition to their sometimes meagre diet, and dried they were available for use all year round. But, most of all, apples could easily be turned into cider, the ubiquitous drink of the times,” says Martin. “Native people too welcomed these cultivated apples that were such an improvement over the small, hard crabapples they were accustomed to.” 10
Currently in Canada, the main commercial apple-growing regions are in Nova Scotia, southern Québec, Ontario—near Lakes Ontario and Erie—and the southern valleys of BC. However, all provinces except Newfoundland have some commercial production.
The Pacific crabapple is the only apple native to BC. It grows quite widely, particularly near water, and produces small green fruits. Historically, these crabapples were eaten by First Nations, and old trees have been found in some abandoned Haida villages. Historians are unsure if they were intentionally planted there or grew from discarded pips.
The first places in BC to cultivate apples in the 1860s were Salt Spring Island, other nearby Gulf Islands, and areas around Victoria on Vancouver Island. According to archival research undertaken by Harry Burton, Salt Spring was the major fruit-producing area in BC, and by 1895, there were roughly 450 residents with about 4,600 fruit trees; this didn’t include smaller orchards with under 200 trees.
In 1895, pioneer Samuel Beddis planted an orchard of 500 trees using rootstock created by planting apple seeds saved from apples eaten on the trip from England. According to Harry’s website, he “later he grafted these young trees with scions from 40 or so varieties shipped from Ireland. Each scion had been sent safely traveling by mail, embedded in an Irish potato. His and other orchards flourished in the mild lush climate.” 11 A partially burnt notebook that belonged to Samuel Beddis includes carefully drawn diagrams of his orchard and a list of the fruit trees. The list is incomplete and misspelled, but gives an idea of some old varieties he grew, including Canada Reinette, Baldwin, Blenheim Orange, Wealthy, Duchess of Oldenburg, and Gravenstein.
Other large orchards of between 250 and 1,600 trees were also planted at the time, with farmers claiming growing conditions were better than in Britain, due to warm summers and mild winters. Apples sold for two cents per pound or seventy-five cents per bushel.
“Some of the Canada Reinette [trees] were so loaded with fruit,” Harry said, “they had to have every branch propped . . . yields per tree were twenty-four boxes of fifty pounds each.”
An article entitled “The Islands—A Well Known Fruit District,” published in 1908 in Victoria’s Daily Colonist newspaper said, “Some of the finest fruit grown in the region of Vancouver Island comes from the islands of Salt Spring, Pender, Main [sic], and Galiano. These islands are extremely well adapted for fruit cultivation, and agriculture and fruit growing have long been their staple industries.” It notes that one of the drawbacks to the success of fruit-growing was the “tendency to attempt too great a variety,” but this had “more or less been corrected” with the conclusion that King, Baldwin, Northern Spy, Jonathan, and Gravenstein “are the varieties of apples best suited to the islands.” 12
The article also mentions the challenges related to transporting apples—“transportation facilities being one setback in the past, and even yet a serious detriment.” Indeed, apples were exported from Salt Spring via rowboat, five miles across the water to Sidney.
About 1895, one of the largest and most productive farms on Salt Spring belonged to Henry Ruckle, whose descendants donated the non-farm portion of the land to the province of BC for the creation of Ruckle Park in 1977. It’s now the oldest continuously operating family farm in BC. Current farm manager Mike Lane and his wife, Marjorie Lane, have been involved with Ruckle Farm since 1990, and each year showcase their heritage apple varieties at the island’s apple festival. Many of the trees still producing apples are well over one hundred years old, and it was this orchard that I wandered through, thinking of all the events that have occurred under those apple tree limbs.
One of Salt Spring’s beloved old-timers, Lotus Ruckle, who died in 2009, married Henry Ruckle’s son, Gordon, in 1930, moving one kilometre down the road to Ruckle Farm from her stepfather’s farm, which today grows heritage apples under the banner of Wave Hill Farm. Harry Burton knew Lotus well, and she told him of a Blue Pearmain tree in her childhood orchard, which had apples so delicious that the family would not sell any, not even to their neighbours. She said her stepdad, island pioneer Cory Menhinick, made “cider equal to the best champagne from his prized Gravenstein apples.” Cider sold for seventy-five cents a gallon in the 1920s, and that was the farm’s main income, said Harry. Lotus’ job was to feed the apples into the grinder.
Award-winning apples at the annual Salt Spring Fall Fair, which is held on the island every September.
PHOTO: DERRICK LUNDY
Agriculture, including fruit production, continued to spread throughout BC, spurred by gold rushes, railway production camps, and the mining industry. By the 1880s, the Okanagan Valley had developed a specialized fruit industry, but it wasn’t until the 1920s that its apple production began to surpass Salt Spring’s. This was due to improved irrigation, rail transportation, and rural electricity in combination with the area’s hot summer temperatures, good soil, and cheap land.
Bob Weeden has a “fascinating little book,” published in 1912, by J.T. Bealby entitled How to Make an Orchard in British Columbia, in which an advertisement offered “thousands of acres of wonderfully productive land for sale in southern British Columbia at extremely low prices.” The cost was “62.5 cents per acre cash and 62.5 cents per acre for seven years thereafter.”
Okanagan apple-growing history credits a priest named Father Pandosy with planting the area’s first apples in 1859 at his Catholic mission in Kelowna. His apples were for use at the mission only, however, and the Okanagan’s first commercial apple enterprise didn’t appear until several decades later. This was started in the 1890s by Lord and Lady Aberdeen, who bought a thirteen thousand-acre ranch in Coldstream, near Vernon, plus other huge tracts of land. They planted one hundred acres of apple trees at each location.
“The Aberdeens spent a considerable amount of money and time encouraging others to start fruit farming in the Okanagan Valley,” noted one document. “Lord Aberdeen was so convinced of the profitability of apple growing that he later subdivided some of his Coldstream Ranch into ten to forty acre parcels to be sold for commercial orchards.” 13
But farming in the Okanagan was difficult, as farmers dealt with insects, winter freezes, and poor transportation. And often, orchardists planted apple varieties unsuitable for the area. Irrigation was an even bigger problem, with a lack of adequate rainfall in many areas, and no government projects providing water. This all changed with the damming of the Columbia River; dams built in the 1930s brought cheap water and irrigation to the big Okanagan orchards, which effectively took over the market.
Several factors over the past 150 years have lessened the apple’s popularity. Once North American pioneers had access to cane sugar from the West Indies, the apple was no longer the sweetest item on the menu. Cane sugar could also be used in alcohol production, again reducing the need for apples. In more recent times, the huge acreages of citrus in Florida and California, with fruit sent north by truck and rail, have brought fatal winter competition to people who invested in cold storage, for provision of apples throughout the winter. Cheap oil enables the importation of papayas and mangoes and bananas from far away at prices apple-country people, paying high wages for labour, can’t match except with big, machine-driven, efficient industrial orchards.
Still, the future for apples could yet be bright, as rising transportation costs make buying locally produced fruit more affordable. And of course, movements like “Slow Food” and “Eat Local” can only help raise apples, and especially heritage apples, back to their former popularity.
PHOTO: CLAY WHITNEY
Taste and appearance: Very small, with a pale green skin blushed with layers of red and nearly invisible white freckles. Though it’s firm to the touch, the flesh is tender, not crisp. The flavour is sweet-tart and subtle. It’s highly aromatic.
Use: Eating fresh, decorating, and cooking. It is best cooked (baked, caramelized, or roasted) to bring out the flavour. Also used decoratively, especially at Christmas and often in wreaths.
History: Thought to be the oldest recognized variety under the name Pomme d’Api. It was originally documented in early Rome during Etruscan rule (approximately 700 BC). The first reference to it as a Lady apple was in 1628 during the French Renaissance.
Growing and Harvesting: Available September through January. Left out, it dries nicely; refrigerated, it lasts up to four weeks.
Other: Considered a cheerful holiday fruit and fun to eat (two bites is all it takes). Don’t peel Lady apples because the peel adds to the winey, semi-sweet taste of the flesh.
Taste and appearance: Yellow, green, and semi-russeted, with a sweet, tasty flavour. The extent of russeting is usually fairly light; the underlying light yellow or green skin is readily visible and may be flushed red.
Use: Eating fresh, but primarily cooking.
History: Despite the name, Reinette du Canada is an old apple from France.
Growing and Harvesting: Ripens in mid- to late season and stores well for one or two months.
Other: It is one of the most widely grown russet varieties in France, readily available in supermarkets and village markets simply as “Canada,” although this term is also used for the more russeted Reinette Grise du Canada.
PHOTO: CLAY WHITNEY
Taste and appearance: A small, red apple with brilliant white flesh and a distinct sweet flavour.
Use: Eating fresh, juice, and cider.
History: It originates in Quebec, where it was grown commercially on a large scale in the 1800s.
Growing and Harvesting: Ripens late in the season and keeps well for one to two months. Able to tolerate extreme winter cold, it has good disease resistance with the exception of being highly susceptible to scab.
Other: Probably the ancestor of McIntosh, which in turn has led to many other varieties, all characterized by crimson skin colours, sweet white flesh, and a unique, sweet flavour.
PHOTO: DERRICK LUNDY
Taste and appearance: Medium-sized green apple with cream-coloured flesh.
Use: Eating fresh, cooking, juice, and cider.
History: One of the oldest American varieties, it was well known in the eighteenth century, probably raised as a seedling by early settlers on Long Island. It was introduced from the US to England in the 1750s.
Growing and Harvesting: A winter apple, it’s picked in late October but tastes better after being stored for one to two months. The tree can take several years to start bearing apples, even on dwarfing rootstock, and it is susceptible to most of the usual apple diseases.
Other: Newtown Pippin was popularized by people such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
3 lb assorted apples, peeled, cored, and quartered
2 cups apple cider
1 tsp lemon zest
juice of ½ a lemon
1 cup maple syrup
½ tsp ground cinnamon
In a Dutch oven over medium heat, melt butter and add apples. Cook apples until slightly softened, about 5 minutes. Add cider, bring to a boil, and reduce heat to a simmer. Let simmer, partially covered and stirring occasionally, until soft, about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Mash softened apples with a potato masher. Remove from heat and add lemon zest, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cinnamon. Using a hand blender, purée mixture until smooth. Pour apple mixture evenly into a baking dish. Transfer to oven and bake, stirring occasionally, until thickened and reduced, about 3 to 3½ hours. Let cool before serving. Apple butter may be kept, refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Chocolate-Covered Lady Apples
8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
12 Lady apples, washed and completely dried
½ cup chopped pistachios or shredded coconut
Line the counter top with parchment paper. Place the chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl and melt them on low power for 1 minute. Stir and place them back in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until melted. Hold the apples by the stem and dip them three-quarters of the way into the chocolate. Lift and twirl them lightly to get rid of excess chocolate. Sprinkle with pistachios or coconut and set on parchment paper. Allow the chocolate to dry for 30 minutes before consuming or wrapping.
Note: When buying apples, be sure to pick ones with stems. They look prettier and are easier to dip. Also, if you wish, you can flavour the melted chocolate with your favourite liqueur before dipping.