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[Steve Herje <loneroc1@gmail.com>]

Thanks Sam!

Sky High (or is it Ski-Hi?) orchard near Baraboo used to grow the tree when
the current owner was a little girl in the fifties.  I asked her about it
around ten years ago and she said that they'd cut out all the trees a while
back.  It was a busy fall day and I could tell that the conversation didn't
interest her.

I thought Gem City sounded cool when I saw an article about the orchard in
an old newspaper.  It was a human interest story about how the above lady
could identify all fifty cultivars in the orchard by taste or smell or
something (it's been a while;-)  The article said that the Gem had been a
major apple in the orchard at the turn of the last century.  Find me a
commercial orchard with fifty varieties these days. Steve H.
On May 4, 2015 3:11 PM, "Brungardt, Sam (MPCA)" <sam.brungardt@state.mn.us>
wrote:

> This is from the Annual Report of the Wisconsin State Horticultural
> Society for the year 1905:
>
> By Wm. Toole, Baraboo.
> The original tree of the Gem City (Townsend) apple was a
> chance seedling which came up close to the house of Mr. Charles
> Dickinson, now dead, whose farm was near Dodgeville.
> The young tree being in, the way, was cut down twice, but
> the third growth was allowed to stay until it had borne fruit.
> XT. George Townsend of Baraboo, while visiting with Mr.
> Diekinson, was much attracted by the fruit, believing that it
> was a seedling of more than ordinary promise. Mr. Town-
> send seems to be the only one who realized at that time the possi-
> ble value of the apple. He procured some scions and eighteen or
> twenty years ago planted two young trees in his orchard from
> this grafting. These trees seemed to be as hardy as any of
> the Russian varieties of which this orchard largely consists.
> Mr. Townsend distributed young trees of his own grafting to
> various persons, among them A. D. Brown and Mrs. Robert
> Ramsey, who exhibited from trees about fifteen years old, the
> fruit which attracted so much attention at the winter meeting
> of the Wisconsin State Horticultural Society in Madison, Feb-
> ruary 9, 1905. Each of these growers speak of it as a better
> grower than the Fameuse with larger fruit, apparently as hare
> as any, an early and good bearer, an all winter keeper of high-
> est quality, and in texture of skin and flesh, appears to be a
> seedling of the Fameuse.
> The foregoing cover the main facts which I can get. No
> one at Dodgeville seems to feel any interest in the apple and
> if it had not been for Mr. Townsend, it would have been lost to
> the world. Mr. A. D. Brown has taken great interest in the
> apple and takes it up as his specialty, now that Mr. Townsend
> is gone.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nafex [mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Scott
> Weber and Muffy Barrett
> Sent: Monday, May 04, 2015 8:45 AM
> To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [nafex] 'gem city apple
>
> Steve, Do you have any sort of a description for Gem City?  Muffy Barrett
>
> ---------- Original Message ----------
>
>
> Now if someone could find the lost central Wisconsin apple 'Gem City'
>
> Steve H. Lone Rock WI
>
>
>
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