Eastman's Antique Apples

It has been a long time since our European forebears brought forth on this continent the apple, the fruit we have come to regard as quintessentially American. In fact, apples first got here from their native Kazakhstan via Western Europe in the 17th century. As the first settlers, and those who followed them, forged an American identity, so did European apples become American.

Apples are open pollinators, meaning that through cross-pollination apple seeds grow into apple trees that bear fruit that may or may not resemble, in appearance or taste, the apples from which the seeds came. Consistent characteristics are achieved by grafting cuttings (scion wood) from trees that produce desirable apples onto very young trees (whips) that will grow to produce apples identical to those from by the predecessor trees. Every McIntosh apple picked in the world today, for example, is descended from the singular tree that lucky American expat John McIntosh discovered on his Ontario, Canada farm in 1811.

Most apple seeds (or pips) will produce apples that are not much good. Fortunately, once in awhile, a chance apple seed produces a tree that bears "keepers," like the "Mac." In our American colonial and federal past, when we were all much more self-sufficient, producing much or all of our own food or not far from its source, a farmer's fortune could be made by discovering (and selling grafts of) an apple that excelled at one or more uses, like eating out of hand; baking, cooking, or preserving; or, most profitably, making (hard) cider. After 300 years of preserving the best varieties, we enjoyed more than 15,000 apple kinds, many of which were uniquely American and tied closely to place—for instance, by being the local apple of choice for folks' favorite apple pie.