As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I have very specific interests from chickens to apples. I have a deep appreciation of genetics which God has stored in His creations.
I love reading about apples and came across a reference to Benjamin Franklin's favorite apple in the Yellow Newton. I knew it by another name and never heard it referenced as such. The other names being, 'Yellow Newtown' ('Albermarle Pippin') and 'Green Newtown' ('Brooke Pippin')
This Newtown Pippin was grown on the Gershen Moore estate in Elmhurst New York. It was Newtown in the 1700's.
Albermarle, comes from the county in Virginia where it was later grown and known by George Washington.
Pippin a common name like Apple and not a variety really, as the pips I believe were the seeds. Two foundation apples are both known as Pippin in the Cox Orange and the Yellow Newtown Pippin, both prized by the English.
Thomas Jefferson noted that the French had nothing compared to the Newtown Pippin. It was this quality of an apple and is one of the parents of the common Ginger Gold. sold today.
There is something remarkable to me, that you can still grow, pick and eat an apple that the Founders were enjoying. That 1700 to 1800 period was a renascence in this world of advancement in agriculture. It is really the time when beasts and weeds, became bred for speicific purposes in milking cows to eating apples.
For all the affection people have for apples, apples were not that pleasant of offering long ago. Most of them were used for cider as they were sour or bitter. Fameuse or the Snow Apple is a very old apple, and while still available today it is almost true to seed, but is a soft apple, parent of MacIntosh which is an apple I simply am not thrilled with. Mac is like puddle ducks you shoot in early season and think they are delicious, and then you eat later corn fed ducks and you try one of them and realize they taste like muddy duck swamp.
I do not have a Newtown Pippin. Perhaps someday I will as I adore yellow apples. My Grandpa had Lodi apples, which were summer apples, soft and he had no teeth so like apples like that, but he always gave me all the apples I wanted. Lodi was a hell of allot better than the apples I remember in the brier which all were red blushed on these green things and they all tasted like green apples. I have no idea what the hell everyone bought or what source, but every damn apple was like that in the country. Maybe they were those Wolf River things or that Russian apple, but I'm really glad they disappeared, even if too many brittle Honeycrisp apples have appeared. That is an apple that is not honey like or one which I think is that good. I suspect it will disappear now that that the patent is expired as Fuji seems to be about the best overall apple that keeps in stock. To me the modern apples from Pink Lady to Cosmic Crisp are better than Red Delicious, but they are all to the same apple. Braeburn is another apple that will probably pass away like the original main corp Baldwin is not even known any more.
It takes too long for apples to mature and it is so harsh here that we can only grow the hardy varieties. I just hope when I get some of these new old varieties that I do not think, "Well that really was not worth the wait". I do have hope as Spitzenburg was an apple I was able to grow and I was delighted with it. It was 100 times the apple Red Delicious ever was. As Spitzenbrug is of the same era as the Pippins, I do have hope as people did know the difference between a sour apple and an eating apple.
I would much rather be writing about this stuff than most of this other stuff combined.
I do hope Heaven is full of singing apple trees. Not that I like long hair music, but a place where the apple trees were pleasant in conversation would please me.
Nuff Said
agtG
