Today in the orchard
More rain and snow and sleet and hail and gray and dark and gloomy. It’s November! I ventured out into the orchard to pick our first crop of “Burnham Sweet,” grafted from an ancient tree introduced to us a few years ago by Peter del Tredici. Peter had been taking care of the tree for several decades out in Cornwall ,CT.
My provisional name for the apple was “Cornwall del Tredici,” but I now believe I've found Burnham Sweet, an apple introduced by a locally famous Cornwall resident and Revolutionary War officer, Oliver Burnham (1760-1846). The Illustrated History of Apples in the United States and Canada .(Bussey, vol I p 312 and 438) lists both Barnham (aka Barnham Sweet) and Burnham (aka Burnham Sweet) as originating in Cornwall and first recorded within a few years of one another (1869 and 1872.) Bussey’s descriptions of the two cultivars are nearly identical. All that separates them is one vowel and that from a time when most documentation was in handwriting, not print. When does an “a” become a “u” or vice versa?
We did a DNA profile (AMHO 311) and found no match in the Reference Panel. The DNA results did show that the famous ancestor of many American apples, Reinette Franche, is likely a grandparent or a more distant relative. The fruit is yellow and it definitely ripens late.