Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 28, 1991 TAG: 9103280536
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium
The third president of the United States planted dozens of varieties of apples, peaches and berries on the steep slopes of Monticello, his mountaintop home.
Almost none of those plants are still in commercial production in the United States.
"American agriculture's marketing techniques try to appeal to consumers' sense of sight, not their sense of taste," said Monticello's grounds director, Peter Hatch.
Round, uniformly red or green apples with perfect, unblemished skin may look great, but they can seldom approach the subtle complexities of taste of less aesthetically pleasing varieties, Hatch said.
Hatch has restored one of Jefferson's orchards and is working on a second. He assembled many of the 150 varieties of fruit trees in the first orchard from specialists - people who graft and tinker to grow what Hatch calls "antique apples." Others came from orchards in Europe and Asia, where fruit trees known in the 18th century are still grown.
"Apples are the really all-American fruit. There is perhaps no better image of the diversity of the country than the apple and probably no better analogy for the homogenization of America than the apple," Hatch said.
American farmers knew 17,000 varieties of apple at the turn of the 20th century, Hatch said. Today, about a dozen kinds of apple are readily available in supermarkets, horticulturists said.
Jefferson grew apples with names like Winter Pearmain, Father Abraham and his favorite, the Esopus Spitzenburg. Other American varieties have poetic names like the Westfield Seek No Further and practical ones like the Winter Banana.
These are apples that inspire rhapsodic description by those who grow them. "The Esopus Spitzenburg has a real strong pineapple taste. And it has the fragrance of cinnamon when you cut it with a knife. It is a firm apple with just the right blend of sweetness and taste," Hatch said.
Like many 18th century American gardeners, Jefferson grew fruit both for food and enjoyment. Cider was a staple at 18th century tables, and Jefferson experimented with dozens of apples, looking for the perfect balance of sweet and tart.
He grew many varieties of European fruit in his eight acres of orchard and grafted trees together to create New World blends.
Jefferson kept extensive gardening journals, recording which plants did well, which failed and what he hoped to try next. And his correspondence with other gentlemen farmers has left Hatch with an extensive litany of the joys and despairs of growing things in Monticello's thick, red loam.
Jefferson even had an apple named for him. The "Jefferson Pippin" was actually just another name for an apple that legend says Jefferson helped create.
According to a 19th century horticulturist, Jefferson was given clippings of a tree grown by the French ambassador to the United States, Citizen Edmond Charles Genet, in 1793 when Jefferson was secretary of state.
Jefferson supposedly carried the clippings home to Virginia and gave them to Caleb Ralls, an Amherst County nurseryman, who tinkered with them. The Ralls Genet became a popular apple in Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio and was grown widely through the early 20th century.
Hatch is skeptical about this story, but rather hopes it true. That's because a commercial apple that Hatch thinks may replace the Red Delicious in popularity was developed from the Ralls Genet.
It's called the Fuji apple, and it is the product of a Japanese horticultural laboratory. The Fuji owes its color, texture, tartness and keeping qualities to the Ralls Genet, Hatch said. Californians are paying $1 apiece for the Fuji.
And Hatch thinks it would be nice if instead of another symbol of the Japanese co-opting things American, the Fuji became a symbol of Thomas Jefferson's American ingenuity.
by CNB