Just as the peach represented the luxurious fertility of the New World, the apple came to symbolize the diversity of America's melting pot culture. One modern source listed the names of 17,000 apple varieties that appeared in nineteenth-century American publications. Hundreds of apples varieties were available to colonial Virginia gardeners, many of them cider apples, most well adapted to the region's warm, humid summers. Jefferson, however, concentrated on only four cultivars either unequalled for cider production (Hewes' Crab and Taliaferro) or unsurpassed as dessert fruits (Newtown Pippin and Esopus Spitzenburg).
A Hewes' Crab Apple growing at Monticello
The Hewes' Crab was the most important horticultural cultivar in eighteenth-century Virginia. This small, maverick apple is perhaps a cross between the traditional apple of pomology and the native crabapple (Malus angustifolia) and thrived in Virginia when more northern or European apples failed. Crushing the juicy Hewes' Crab for cider was like "squeezing a wet sponge."
The Taliaferro was Jefferson's favorite: "the best cyder apple existing . . . nearer to the silky Champagne than any other." Unfortunately, it has disappeared from cultivation and remains Monticello's mystery apple.
Selected apples varieties at Monticello
When comparing the fruits of Europe and America, Jefferson wrote from Paris, "They have no apple to compare with our Newtown Pippin." Known later as the Albemarle Pippin, this apple supported a large industry in Jefferson's home county (Albemarle County) based on export to England. Like the Pippin, the Spitzenburg originated in New York and ruled the nineteenth-century pomological charts when apples were often critically reviewed and competitively rated.
Drawing of the Albemarle (Newtown) Pippin