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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Preserving (maybe not) rare apples in Yosemite Nation...

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  • From: Sarah Kehler Ewing <skkewing@yahoo.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Preserving (maybe not) rare apples in Yosemite Nation...
  • Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 13:58:26 -0700 (PDT)


Hi Jerry,

I won't throw any eggs, just present a different look at apple preservation.

I agree that the organization that you mentioned is a worthwhile one: I'm
interested in preserving heirloom anything, but it had better be worth my
time. I used to have the only breed of chickens developed in Canada:
Partridge Chanticlers (Chanticlers come in white and buff too). They were
nice chickens, layed well, set well, good mothers, pleasant birds to work
with, healthy, nice carcasses when butchered.... but they pooped every time
they laid an egg so the nest boxes and every egg was always covered in crap!
Long story short: they all wound up in my freezer! I'm not interested in
preservation at all cost, the material has to be worth preserving. Now I
have Blue Silkies, Americaunas (blue, green, brown speckled eggs) and
Welsummers (chocolate brown and sometimes spotted eggs) and have all of the
above sans the poop issues.

I think the same story can be applied to apples (also sans the poop issue!).
Not very long ago all you could buy in Canadian (I better specify Western
Canadian or I'll get some nasty-grams from the Easterners!) grocery stores
were MacIntosh (developed in Ontario), Spartans (developed in B.C.), Granny
Smith, Red and Yellow Delicious. These are all fine apples, evidently
favoured by the "factory farms", but hardly the best apples out there. We
lost a lot of apple varieties in the last 30 years, not because they were no
good, but because someone out there felt that we as consumers wouldn't buy
them. We are still losing our cold hardy fruit trees, not because they are
not worth growing, but because most people want to simply buy fruit in the
store and they don't care where it comes from or how its grown. Those trees
in Yosemite are probably worth preserving if for no other reason than they
have survived for years without massive doses of chemicals to
control diseases.

Sarah
zone 3
Edmonton, AB

FYI Sans is French and it basically means "without".

> I wouldn't donate one cent to preserve those varieties
> unless it is named and then no other known specimens of that
> variety available. There are over 3,000 named apple
> varieties and one place I read there are 5,000 and I suspect
> there are even more worldwide. Of these many are lost and
> with good reason, they were inferior to other varieties and
> have been lost to history because those that held them saw
> no reason to propagate them.

> OK, I'm braced for the verbal eggs.
>
>
>
> Jerry









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