This excellent late fall to early winter dessert apple is one of our most prized finds from the Belgrade Lakes area of central Maine. Medium to large roundish-oblate fruit is deep red with widely scattered fairly prominent dots.

We’ve found ancient trees in Sidney, Belgrade, Rome and Farmington, all still pumping out generous crops every other year, seemingly impervious to everything. DNA profiling has revealed it to be a child of Newtown Spitzenburg, itself one of the premier dessert apples of early American orchards. Longtime Fedco staffer and fruit explorer Laura Childs introduced the apple to John Bunker in 2011. The tree Laura found, at the home of Tom and Laura Hudson, stands on property once part of Joseph Taylor’s Belgrade farm. Taylor (1804-1882) was one of the more well-known orchardists in central Maine in the mid-19th century. He introduced several original cultivars, and we believe this is one of them. It might be the “Childs”, the “Zachary” or “Rome of Maine,” but for now we’re calling it Childs. Because the old descriptions are so sketchy, we may never know for sure. The scionwood for all these trees come from the Hudson farm in Belgrade.

Highly recommended. Midseason blooms. Z4. Maine Grown. (Standard: 3-6' bare-root trees)