Dave Reid barrels through his one-hundred-acre orchard in Pennsylvania's Appalachian foothills in a rickety pickup truck, unconcerned there is no road between the rows of fruit trees he shimmies past. He slows to shove his hand out the window and squeeze the peaches for ripeness. The fruit that Baltimore Farmers' Market customers will buy this weekend is still warming on the trees, dripping like rubies and garnets in this mouthwatering fruit paradise.

Reid and his wife, Kathy, have planted their groves over the last thirty years with dizzying varieties of peaches, plums, pears, berries, cherries, and grapes. But the one crop that has a special place
in this verdant farm is the apple.

In this valley fifteen miles west of Gettysburg that is prized for its soil (a soil called Highfield channery silt loam), Reid found prime apple country with orchards dating back almost two hundred years. The first farmer on this land, says Reid, planted an apple orchard and built a barn in about 1850. Reid, a farmer with a knack for preserving history, used the stones from the old barn to build a new façade and fireplace in their modern farmhouse.

But Reid's reputation as a preservationist comes not from saving the stones of old buildings, but from saving heirloom apple trees from extinction. In the last three decades, the Reids have planted one hundred kinds of apple trees, of which sixty are heirloom (or antique) apples left behind in America's rush to commercialize and dumb down the fruit industry, eliminating the relationship between the farmer and the consumer along the way.

Today there are about two hundred apple varieties grown around the country, according to The American Gardener. Meanwhile, 2,500 kinds of apple trees are being preserved in a museum-like orchard in Geneva, New York, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including many from the forests of Kazakhstan, where the apple was born. (For further reading about apple history, try Michael Pollan's engaging apple chapter in The Botany of Desire.)

The Reid orchard's remarkable variety of apples dates back to the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and originally came from France, England, and other parts of Europe, many with arcane names like Westfield Seek-No-Further, Nickajack, and Duchess of Oldenburg. In addition to the heirloom varieties, they grow other unusual hybrid apples. One customer suggested that Reid grow an unusual hybrid called Red Haralson because the man recalled it from his childhood. Without a second thought, Reid went out and planted one hundred Red Haralson trees with fruit that is tart like a Winesap. The trees come from as far north as British Columbia and as far south as Tennessee and all grow nicely in Pennsylvania's Buchanan Valley.

Reid started growing heirloom apples twenty years ago simply because it was fun. One of his first antique apples didn't go over very well though. Called a Sheepnose because it had a pointed shape like a sheep's nose, it tasted terrible, Reid says. And it only kept for two days before losing its taste. He ended up using it for cider.

Ten years later, the time was finally right for his customers to take the heirloom fruits seriously. Every time Reid pulled up an old Red Delicious tree, he replaced it with an heirloom tree or another unusual variety. Some he planted on recommendations that the fruit would be good and others he planted out of curiosity. He chose one apple called Mary Reid (a summer cooking apple) just because it shares his name.

Many of the trees on the Reid farm are young and won't yield a bushel of apples for five years after being planted. Waiting that long to taste an apple can be quite suspenseful, says Kathy.

"You bite into it with such expectation." She pauses and makes a sour face. "And it's a dog. The skin is like a toenail and it tastes awful. Then sometimes you bite into it and it's ambrosia." (Not surprisingly, the Reids grow an apple from British Columbia called Ambrosia, which they describe as tasting like a Gala with a zip.) The Reids taste the many varietals when they are picked, and they continue to taste them over several days to see how the flavor changes. They also leave them on their kitchen counter to see how long they take to get soft. Nickajacks, for example, stay hard on the counter for three weeks, whereas a McIntosh they pick one day is not the same apple two weeks later. The Reids also say the flavor of a McIntosh (Kathy's favorite) improves from cooler nights on the tree when the sugar intensifies. They can easily tell one apple from another just from its appearance. If there is any question, either of the Reids can identify it by the texture of its skin or by tasting it.

"It's sort of like telling twins apart," says Kathy.

On a visit to Reid's Orchard in July, the apples are just starting to fatten up on the trees. Reid walks among the rows, checking on nasty Japanese beetles and other pests. Occasionally, finding a tree with branches that hadn't been thinned, he pulls off some of the little apples, dumping them on the ground, to force the others to grow larger.

It is hard to imagine how he started this vast and complicated orchard with no farming experience. Thirty years ago, when other farmers were leaving the business, Reid was a house painter living in Frederick and working in Washington, D.C.

"I had a lifelong dream of farming," he says. "I was out of work one winter. I saw this place for sale. I was dumb enough and young enough to try something new." He bought the first twenty acres in 1976 and later bought an adjacent farm with another eighty acres. The second purchase rejoined the bulk of what had been the original 1850 farm. Today, the Reids' grown children (Maggie, 25, Caitlin, 23, and Christopher, 22) all work on the farm. Reid, modest and self-effacing, says the only skill he carried over from house painting was his ability to climb a ladder. What he knows now—eight thousand fruit trees later—he learned from other farmers, from reading books, and from trial and error.

As he traipses through the orchard, weeds of all kinds wave knee-high between every row of fruit.
 
"It's not the prettiest farm," he says. "Look, the weeds are terrible." Reid may apologize for the orchard's untidiness, but he doesn't apologize for refusing to use herbicides to kill the weeds.

"We're minimalist when it comes to pesticides. We use as little as possible," he says.

He believes the weeds harbor insects that are beneficial to the trees. He uses pesticides only when he has to (for destructive Japanese beetles, for example) and when he sprays he uses "a new generation of sprays" that are considered less toxic and safer than older pesticides.

The amount of work at such a farm appears overwhelming to an outsider. But the Reids get their energy and inspiration, says Kathy, from knowing who will consume the fruit of the seeds and trees they plant. The Reids sell their fruit exclusively at farmers' markets (three in the Baltimore area and three in Northern Virginia), refusing to do business with supermarkets or processing plants. This puts them in the excellent position of knowing what their customers want.

 "We're farmers and direct marketers," says Kathy. "Going to farmers' markets is a different creative act than actually growing the food. These people we see at the market are part of our family."

Reid believes the reason for the interest in heirloom fruit has to do with his generation getting older. "They want to know what stuff used to taste like, how this apple begot that apple," he says.

"And," adds Kathy, "they want their kids to know that all food doesn't come wrapped in plastic from Giant."


—Joan Jacobson is a regular contributor and sometime editor for Urbanite. She also spent 28 years reporting for Baltimore's Sun and Evening Sun.


Web Bonus : Apple Recipes

Old-Fashioned Apple Pie

6 to 8 medium apples, peeled and sliced
_ to 1 c. sugar
2 tbs. flour
1 tbs. cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
pinch salt
1 tbs. lemon juice
2 tbs. butter or margarine

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix sugar, flour, and spices together in small bowl; set aside. Sprinkle sliced apples with lemon juice, set aside. Place 1/3 of apples in pastry- lined 9" pie pan. Sprinkle with 1/3 sugar mix. Repeat layers till gone. Dot top of apples with cut-up butter. Set top crust on apples, seal and flute edges; cut steam vents in top crust. Sprinkle crust with cinnamon-sugar, if desired. Bake 45-50 minutes on middle rack of oven or until crust is browned and apples are tender.

Tip for Picking Apples for Pies:
A blend of apple varieties will produce more flavorful pies. The mix of sugars, acidity, and juices combine to create superior dessert. Try to blend a fairly hard and tart variety with a fairly juicy variety and variety known for its aromatic bouquet.

Examples:
Prima + McIntosh + Jonathan
Cortland + Jonamac + Jonathan
Stayman + Idared + Macoun
Stayman + Mutsu + Northern Spy
Stayman + Jonagold + Empire
Granny + Jonagold + Empire
Granny + Idared + Jonamac/McIntosh
Granny + Empire + Stayman


Homemade Applesauce

6 to 8 medium apples peeled and quartered
_ cup water
_ to _ cup sugar or brown sugar

Combine apples and water in saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Cover and simmer over low heat 15-20 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching or sticking to the bottom of the pan. Stir in sugar and let simmer 5-10 minutes more. If desired add 1 teaspoon cinnamon with the sugar.


Tip:
To make a sugarless sauce, you can add 2 ripe Bartlett pears to the apple mix or choose sweet apples such as Fuji, Golden Delicious, or Mutsu.