September 10,
1995, Sunday, City Edition SECTION: NEW HAMPSHIRE WEEKLY; Pg. 6
HEADLINE: In apple orchards, natural wins out over flawless; NEW
HAMPSHIRE WEEKLY / HEALTH & SCIENCE BYLINE: By Ralph Jimenez, Globe
Staff DATELINE: CONTOOCOOK , New
Hampshire BODY: A good apple should not become
moldy or mushy while waiting to be eaten - at least by humans. From the apple
tree's point of view, producing apples that stayed crisp, fresh and unblemished
appearance would be counterproductive, said Eric Leadbeater, owner of Gould Hill Apple Orchards. "Apples are supposed to get soft
and rot. That's the idea," said Leadbetter, who recently patented the Hampshire
apple, a new strain that arose on its own in his orchard and is very reluctant
to turn to mush. In nature, an apple tree relies on mammals and birds to
distribute its bitter seeds. "Most of the animals are color blind, so being
pretty isn't important to the apple tree. It is primarily odor that is
attracting those mammals and birds," Leadbetter said. That odor is enhanced
when the apple's skin is punctured by insects or when the fruit begins to decay.
"When you damage a fruit, it will ripen faster and be even more aromatic,"
Leadbetter said. "Nature's design is to have an apple riddled with worms and
cracked by disease." The thousands of amateur pickers already swarming
through the state's orchards to pick their own all reach for perfect, pampered,
unnatural fruit. Unshapely fruit or any with spots, scabs or anemic coloring are
scorned. "What the consumer asks for today - a big, hard, red or yellow,
crisp apple - totally flies in the face of nature's design. The apple grower
today is being asked to produce something totally unnatural, which is why they
must use some pesticides," Leadbeater said. A few years ago, Leadbeater made
a study of fruit as it appears in the paintings by the Old Masters, here defined
as artists whose works were created before DDT and other petrochemicals. "Most
artists of the period tended to portray things in their best light, so probably
these things looked even worse in reality. Every apple in those paintings had so
many blemishes that today I couldn't legally sell it as a fancy or extra-fancy
fruit," Leadbetter said. The Hampshire apple, a fruit patented by Leadbetter
after it was discovered growing in his hillside orchard, keeps far better than
most of the 80 varieties he grows. Harder and crisper than the McIntosh apple it
resembles, the Hampshire was largely the result of an apple tree's need to
cross-pollinate in order to bear fruit. "Cross-pollination greatly enhances
biodiversity. In the next ice age, peaches may not survive but apples probably
will," Leadbetter predicted. All apples grown commercially are propagated by
grafting genetic cloning of their parents. The first known Hampshire apple tree,
however, sprang up naturally in a spot where a dead tree had been removed. Fruit
from the small tree was picked for several years and mixed in with the McIntosh
apples from the same row. "At the point it began to produce a half bushel or
so, someone paid attention to it and said, 'Gee, this isn't a Mac after all.
It's well-colored but not mature at the normal picking time for Macs,' "
Leadbetter said. At that point, Leadbetter began the six-year process that
leads to a patent. Every aspect of the apple and the tree it came from had to be
exhaustively investigated and described in scientific terms. Years of
experiments - bagging blossoms and hand-pollinating them, grafting buds from the
original tree to see if the Hampshire apple could be produced on other rootstock
- had to be conducted. On his second attempt, Leadbetter received his patent.
"Ultimately, we try to sell it and get a little royalty, but for now it's a
fantastic eating apple and a grower's dream," he said. The Hampshire apple
Leadbetter succeeded in patenting did in many ways create itself. But people
lucky enough to simply stumble upon an improved version of nature's work growing
in the wild are unlikely to succeed when they try to patent their
find.
> Hello. At the NAFEX Conference in August,
we visited an apple orchard. It was > the first one we visited. I believe
it was called Adams Nursery or Gold Hill > Orchard. The owner mentioned a
new apple variety called, "Hampshire". I wanted > to check it out, but
cannot find the orchard on the Internet. Does anyone > have information
on how I might contact them. Thanks so much, Waite Maclin, Maine > (Zone
5) and a pleasant Thanksgiving Celebration to everyone! >
>
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