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>they're small, very very tart, and quite a firm bite. Now, I like my apples tart and firm, but they're far too much for me unrelated factoid that might be rel

>they're small, very very tart, and quite a firm bite. Now, I like my apples tart and firm, but they're far too much for me unrelated factoid that might be related, but there is an old American folk hero named Johnny Appleseed who walked around the early republic planting apple seeds wherever he went to promote more apples. then more recently a book came out about apples and it described that apples don't "breed true" so even if you plant the seeds of sweet apples, you probably will not get sweet child trees. But, sour tart apples are still useful for making cider, and turns out alcoholic beverages was Johnny Appleseed's goal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed

toss1 2y ago
It also turns out that there are hundreds of local / regional cultivars grown for a variety of specific purposes (way beyond today's mass-marketed four or five varieties). Many farms had an orchard, which consisted of a few to a few dozen trees, each with different cultivars cloned by grafting. Different varieties were good for different purposes, such as eating directly (dessert apples), baking, storing, cider, producing early or late, etc. These varieties really do make a difference. I spent one autumn picking apples and we could take home a bag every day, and it was really interesting as the season went through the varieties. One day, we had a few Wolf River trees to pick; they were huge like coconut-sized (no exaggeration), and bred for baking. Indeed they tasted not good, but I brought three home and my mom made two pies - everyone thought those were amazing. There are a number of efforts in the US and England, both govt (e.g., USDA) and private, working to preserve these often rare cultivars. One is in Bolton Massachusetts, New England Botanic Garden’s Historic Apple Orchard [0]. They sometimes have to hunt in very obscure places to find just a twig of an old cultivar, bring it back and graft it to a rootstock. They are doing a lot of fascinating DNA analysis and cataloging, and it's a pretty big data management project too, to keep track of who has examples of what cultivars, in what condition, etc.. [0] https://nebg.org/orchard/ https://nebg.org/orchard/
fat_cantor 2y ago
There was a robust social effort back then to select and grow the best cider apple trees, but those orchards were cut down during prohibition

toss1 2y ago

It also turns out that there are hundreds of local / regional cultivars grown for a variety of specific purposes (way beyond today's mass-marketed four or five varieties). Many farms had an orchard, which consisted of a few to a few dozen trees, each with different cultivars cloned by grafting. Different varieties were good for different purposes, such as eating directly (dessert apples), baking, storing, cider, producing early or late, etc. These varieties really do make a difference. I spent one autumn picking apples and we could take home a bag every day, and it was really interesting as the season went through the varieties. One day, we had a few Wolf River trees to pick; they were huge like coconut-sized (no exaggeration), and bred for baking. Indeed they tasted not good, but I brought three home and my mom made two pies - everyone thought those were amazing. There are a number of efforts in the US and England, both govt (e.g., USDA) and private, working to preserve these often rare cultivars. One is in Bolton Massachusetts, New England Botanic Garden’s Historic Apple Orchard [0]. They sometimes have to hunt in very obscure places to find just a twig of an old cultivar, bring it back and graft it to a rootstock. They are doing a lot of fascinating DNA analysis and cataloging, and it's a pretty big data management project too, to keep track of who has examples of what cultivars, in what condition, etc.. [0] https://nebg.org/orchard/ https://nebg.org/orchard/

fat_cantor 2y ago

There was a robust social effort back then to select and grow the best cider apple trees, but those orchards were cut down during prohibition