It’s Tax Day in the USA. As far as I know there are no apple cultivars with the word “Tax” in the name. Bussey lists three that include the word “Money:” Money Creek Beauty, Moneybush and—my favorite—Money Maker. Money Maker would be a great name for a cider apple. Too bad it’s been taken. When the apples are ripe, you could “Shake Your Money Maker,” just like that famous old blues song sung by Elmore James (and many others.) Maybe we’ll name one of our seedlings Shake your Money Maker.

We already have one apple on the farm with the word Money in its name with another one to be grafted this spring. “Big Money” is one of our seedlings. It’s what our Grandson Chance used to call the quarter he got for doing chores around the house or under his pillow in exchange for a lost tooth. We’re expecting Big Money to make us zillions in the coming years. “Old Money Bitter” is one of the new cultivars we’ll be topworking in a few weeks. It was discovered by Benford Lepley out on Long Island, NY. He describes it as “really elegant, beautiful, complex bitter,” just like old money.

Dozens of other songs have been written about taxes and money. George Harrison’s Tax Man immediately comes to mind which, I just learned, features a guitar solo by Paul (not George). My favorite money song is Woody Guthrie’s. I find myself periodically singing it out in the orchard. In fact it may be one of my all-time favorite songs.

If you ain't got the do, re, mi, folks
You ain't got the do, re, mi
You better go back to beautiful Texas
Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do, re, mi

While others were paying their hard earned do re mi today (or not), I was up in our orchard (a paradise to live in and see) with our friend Stever who came over with his backhoe to “rough dig” forty holes for trees we’ll plant this spring.