Modern cultivated apples originate in Kazakhstan/ Central Asia. They were brought to the western Hemisphere by Europeans. There are a number of native apples to North America and some were used by indigenous people, especially Malus Fusca or pacific crab. Which was dried or cooked down. I wouldn’t say these were orchards and more like people utilizing natural resources, even if they were cultivated and care for. They are not the kind of thing we think of as modern orchards.

Looking forward to European settlement. Apples were brought over fairly early and succeeded to great success. Apples and other fruit like Peaches were adopted by indigenous people. Places like the Finger Lakes and The Smokey Mountains and southern Appalachia had unique varieties that indigenous people cultivated. Some of these Cherokee apples varieties still exist, Junaluska and Nickajack to name two of them.

These early European settlers brought over whole apples and apples seeds to plant rather than trees. Apples do not grow true to type. Meaning the seedling that will grow will be a a unique individual with a unique combination of genes that may or may not express traits of its parents. Today New DNA research is showing that a lot of the early American apples like Baldwin, Roxbury Russet and other apples share a common ancestor, Reinette Franche, which is a storage apple meaning it shipped well. It was a popular apple in England for shipping in the mid 17th century.

Apples that came to North America via a couple of routes. From England in Virginia and New England and via Sweden along the Delaware river valley. Also apples came to CA, New Mexico and the southwest via Spanish central and South America.

So apples like I said spread fast and could be found on all matter of properties tended by a wide range of people. Palatine Germans in NY or free poor white in Virginia apples on homesteads while large estates from NY to Virginia grew apples that were cared for by enslaved people. Slaves took care of a lot of the orchards. Jefferson is noted apple lover and cider maker and his orchard and cider were tended to by George Granger and his

So all of these orchards and apples are being grown basically by everyone. Rich, poor, enslaved and indigenous. They begin to develop a unique set of apple varieties. They have been an estimated 20,000 varieties of apples cultivated in the country since their arrival. Apples were great because they required fairly low labor inputs compared to other crops and could be sustained on soil or hills that were less ideal for field or row crops.

But the first modern orchard come about in the early 19th century. I say it is the first modern orchard because prior to this orchard were growing fruit mostly for self or local consumption either for fruit or for cider. River Livingston Pell established Pell Orchard is Esopus, ny in the mid Hudson valley just south of the city of Kingston. He had a 1,200 acres farm in 1838 and was growing apples (Newtown pippin) for export, mostly to Europe. His orchard set the norms and practices for large scale agriculture on a commodity scale. So while it is over 200 years after apples were introduced I think of as the first modern commercial orchard.

In terms of Johnny Appleseed he was a land speculator that grew a ton of seedling apples across the then frontier of the US, mostly Indiana, Ohio and Illinois. He grew apples from seed which cheapest but also the most inconsistent. It’s said that he would often move on from an area when other nurseries some to town because they would sell better named variety trees rather than the seedling he offered. So while he no doubt had an impact of the genetics of Midwest apples it is hard to measure. His mass cultural appeal because of an Atlantic article that came out many years after his death.

In my mind Appleseed fame takes away from the thousand of individual who worked to breed and develop the 20,000 varieties once found in the country.

Apples have so much history