Sweet Bough

Sweet Bough is one of the oldest American varieties, originating somewhere on the east coast well before 1800. Synonyms for this late summer apple include Large Yellow Bough, August Sweet, August Sweeting, Autumn Bough, Bough, Bough Apple, Early Bough, Early French Reinette, Early Sweet Bough, Early Sweetheart, Large Bough, Large Early Bough, Large Early Yellow Bough, Large Sweet Bough, Niack Pippin, Pound's July, Sweet Harvest, Yellow Bough, and more. All the same apple!

It was first mentioned in A View of the Cultivation of Fruit Trees by William Coxe in 1817. Coxe called it simply Bough. It came to Maine before 1850 and was sold by Taber’s nursery in Vassalboro nearly 200 years ago. Today you can still find the tree growing at The Apple Farm in Fairfield. Owners, Steve and Marilyn Meyerhans, were told the old trees were “Pound Sweet” when they purchased the orchard decades ago. This was confusing because Pound Sweet ripens in mid-October while the Apple Farm’s apple ripens nearly 2 months earlier. In 2022 results of a DNA profile of the apple identified it as Sweet Bough. Now we know.

The medium-sized, round-conic fruit is a soft, light green with an occasional faint orange blush and usually a small russet splash around the stem. Sweet Bough is a true “sweet” variety with little to almost no acidity. It could be a good addition to early season cider. In central Maine it ripens towards the end of August and into September.