“It’s one of four apple varieties brought to American shores in the 1830s from Russia,” Mr. Phillips said. “They were looking for apples that were very hardy to this climate, that a homestead family could depend on for a crop.”

It’s also one of his favorite apples, a tart summer variety that makes a great pie and applesauce.

“It has a reddish blush on green, with some stripes, and then the green turns yellow,” he said, with a lover’s attention to detail.

But then, Mr. Phillips loves all his apples. And there are 80 varieties thriving here.

One wild apple tree was 20 years old when he got here, and he could tell it had a healthy root system. So he started grafting varieties to its branches. Now, 24 varieties ripen on its stems.

How is that possible?

When children ask that, Mr. Phillips answers like this: “I say, ‘Kayle, if I cut off your thumb and put it on Ben’s thumb over here, then everything growing out of Ben’s thumb would be Kayle.’ ”

Gruesome, but clear.

So is his description of his nemesis, the round-headed apple-tree borer.

“The female crawls down the trunk to the soil line and makes as many as seven slits in a little baby tree the size of my thumb and lays an egg,” he said. “That grub stays in there for two years, eating the cambium and sap wood, then extends down to the roots. If just one survives, that tree’s dead.”

You could go after the larvae with a wire, but if there are seven, you’ll carve up the tree.

Instead, in July and August, when the females lay their eggs, Mr. Phillips sprays the trunk with a neem oil solution that contains a compound called azadirachtin, which suppresses molting. If an insect can’t shed its skin as it grows, it dies. Neem oil also deters insects from feeding and laying eggs.