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Event
BYFG Winter Meeting
John Bunker has not always been an apple expert.
Growing up in California and Massachusetts, he attended Colby Collegei in Maine. He settled in the town of Palermo after graduating in 1972. He saw there were lots of apple trees around that were not being picked and offered his fruit harvesting services. He was glad to have a source of free food, and his neighbors were glad to have the help. Bunker did not know much about the apples he was picking, though. But he talked with old-timers in Palermo and picked up the knowledge they shared with him. One by one, I learned the names of the fruit I was picking, eating, storing and pressing into cider, Bunker wrote in his book Not Far From the Tree: A Brief History of the Apples and the Orchards of Palermo, Maine, 1804-2004. The names are colorful and full of character: Northern Spy, Snow, Tolman Sweet, Baldwin, Winter Banana, Pumpkin Sweet and Golden Russet. Answering that question requires a look at the history of the apple. While there are some 40 different species of apples, all of the common, edible varieties we think of today share a single species, Malus pumila. It traces its roots to Malus sieversii, which is believed to have originated in Kazakhstan. By the post-Civil War era, Bunker said, there were likely 20,000 named varieties of apples across the United States. A large orchard might consist of 50 to 100 trees, while many families kept a smaller number on their farm for their own use.
By the early 20th century the country was changing, though, and there was a push for increased commercialization of agriculture. In 1927, for example, extension agents in New England hatched what Bunker calls a conspiracy of sorts to focus on just seven varieties of apples in order to create a viable commercial orchard industry. Shortly after that, the winter of 1933-34 proved devastating. Record cold temperatures (it hit 78 below zero in Presque Isle on Feb. 7) punctuated by periods of warmth proved more than Maines apple trees could handle after a bumper crop in the fall of 1933. Bunker reported in his book that by the spring of 1934, more than one million apple trees almost two-thirds of the states entire apple trees were dead. The situation was equally grim across the rest of New England and New York. Crews were hired to clean up the winters carnage, and older varieties were pushed to the side to make room for the select seven (among them McIntosh, which came through the winter better than other varieties). Many old varieties might have been lost forever if it were not for arboreal angels such as Lothrop Davenport in Massachusetts, who was hired to clear trees but secretly snuck scion wood from old trees to his own orchard and grafted them there to preserve them.
Bunkers mission has become finding old, forgotten apple varieties on overgrown or long-ago abandoned farms and rescuing them from oblivion. He heads up the effort to create a 10-acre heritage orchard outside the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardner Associations Common Ground Fair site in Unity. In the last three years, more than 280 apple and pear varieties once grown in Maine have been grafted onto root stock in what was once a gravel pit. Some of them have provisional names indicating where they came from as Bunker and others work to identify what historical variety they might be. He recounted how one woman told him her grandmother had a 12-tree orchard with a dozen different varieties, each of which she used for a specific food. We can take from the past as we reinvent the agriculture of the future, he said. These varieties these classic varieties can, should and will play an important role in the future, as well.
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LocationFarm and Home Center (View)
1383 Arcadia Rd
Lancaster, PA 17601
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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