All you ever wanted to
know about APPLES!
- In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a
traditional proposal of marriage; catching it was acceptance.
- The Lady or Api apple is one of the oldest varieties in
existence.
- In colonial time apples were called winter banana or melt-in-the-mouth.
- Newton Pippin apples were the first apples exported from
America in 1768, some were sent to Benjamin Franklin in London.
- In 1730 the first apple nursery was opened in Flushing, New York.
- One of George Washington's hobbies was pruning his apple trees.
- America's longest-lived apple tree was reportedly planted in 1647
by Peter Stuyvesant in his Manhattan orchard and was still bearing
fruit when a derailed train struck it in 1866.
- Apple varieties range in size from a little larger than a cherry
to as large as a grapefruit.
- The largest apple on record weighed 3 pounds 4 ounces and
was grown by the Hanners Family of Hood River, Oregon in 1994.
- Apples harvested from an average tree can fill 20 boxes that
weigh 42 pounds each.
- A peck of apples weight 10.5 pounds.
- A bushel of apples weights about 42 pounds and will yield 20-24
quarts of applesauce.
- The science of apple growing is called
pomology.
- Apples are a member of the rose family.
- Apple trees take four to five years to produce their first fruit.
- Most apples are still picked by hand in the fall.
- Apples are propagated by two methods: grafting or budding.
- The apple variety ‘Delicious' is the most widely grown in the
United States.
- Apples are grown in all 50 states.
- Apple blossom is the state flower of Michigan.
- Most apple blossoms are pink when they open but gradually fade
to white.
- Some apple trees will grown over forty feet high and live over
a hundred years.
- Most apples can be grown farther north than most other fruits
because they blossom late in spring, minimizing frost damage.
- It takes the energy from 50 leaves to produce one apple.
- Apples are the second most valuable fruit grown in the United
States. Oranges are first.
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