Today in the orchard
Todd Little-Siebold and a magazine reporter came to the farm this morning for an apple ID session. We spread out the bags of apples and the books and went at it. One of our focuses was an apple we refer to as Mary Brown #4 from Prospect, ME that we’ve been attempting to identify for the past twelve years. One possible ID is Northern Belle, an apple submitted to the USDA by EH Dunbar from Damariscotta in October 1898 and painted a month later, though never historically described under that name. My guess is that “Northern Belle” is either a local synonym for another apple or possibly just a fabricated family name. Reviewing the literature, the one variety that is a possible match is “Litchfield” aka Litchfield Pippin. There is a pretty decent description of that cultivar in Bradford (Apple Varieties of Maine). Although the description is incomplete, it is a very decent match.
It was a morning of detective work accompanied by a rolling explanatory monologue. Becoming an apple detective is a life-long process. If you want to be a good one—or a really good one—prepare to put in many years tromping through orchards and squinting at apples.