The Apple Club Newsletter, Spring 2006, Page 1

This has been a late spring, with our apples only now coming into flower. And so also is the newsletter a little late, but at least within season.
Our apples are now gone for the year, but in just a few short weeks, the strawberries will be upon us again. Many thanks for your custom over the past season.

In 1962 James Curran bought a property in Excelsior, Minnesota. While clearing out the remnants of an old neglected orchard beside the farmhouse, he came across a bronze plaque which read: "This tablet commemorates Peter M. Gideon who grew the original wealthy apple tree from seed on this homestead in 1864". In the intervening years, Curran has researched the story behind the plaque, and has published a book called "The Great American Apple Wizard", which tells the story of Peter M. Gideon, and the famous apple variety called the Wealthy, which he named for his wife, Wealthy.
Native apple trees in America were crab apples, and were consequently unsuitable for eating. When Eurpeoan settlers arrived, they brought seeds with them, but many of these apples were not suited to the American continent, especially areas like Minnesota, where winters were very harsh. However, the work of Peter Gideon signalled a change in all that. As a child, Peter was always interested in fruit. In 1825, at the age of five he planted peach seeds, and as he later recalled, by the time he was nine (he spent his early life in Ohio), he had the pleasure of eating fruits from peach trees that he had grown from seeds himself. At 29, he married 18-year-old Wealthy Hull. Soon he developed lung trouble, and was advised to move to Minnesota, which was reputed to be a uniquely healthy place to live. And so he moved in 1853, even though he heard that the winters were too frigid to grow fruit. When he arrived in the spring of 1854, Gideon began planting as quickly as he could, sowing 350 apple trees, and a lesser quantity of pears, cherries, quince and plums. In 1855, temperatures plunged to minus 40 degrees, and every Minnesota farmer lost his trees. In the spring, Gideon only had three or four surviving saplings. And while his wife and children begged him to leave, he remained undaunted. Because of the scarcity of apples, seeds were precious; just how precious is recounted by the following story about his daughter Florence. "Florence had an apple before going to bed, and was given the usual reminder to 'save the seed'. In the morning while Florence still slept, Peter went to her bedside. There he found a stem and core, but no seeds. Florence awakened, knew what her father was looking for, and unclasped her tightly clenched little fist, to reveal embedded in her palm, the precious seeds."
It was not these seeds that bore the eventual Wealthy apple, but rather one of a sample sent to him from Maine. A tree from one of these seeds bore its first fruits in 1867, and while he only harvested half a dozen fruit in the first year, they were of high quality, and suitable for eating and cooking. He named the variety for his wife, who by then had borne him seven children.
News of Gideons freeze-proof apples swept through the northern states, and they were later displayed at the Minnesota State Fair. Accolades poured in, and Gideon's Fruit Farm became a popular tourist attraction. His success was used by the state's horticultural society to argue for a well-funded research and breeding program, which still continues to this day in the University of Minnesota. The governor made Gideon superintendent of the new experimental station, which was welcome news for his family, because up to then Gideon had been a poor provider for his family, surviving by selling eggs and doing odd jobs. Gideon lived long enough to see the Wealthy apple recognised as one of the US's leading varieties, especially popular for pie baking.
But Gideon's interest in spiritualism and his views on social issues conspired against him. He loudly disapproved of alcohol, slavery, Indian removal and horse racing, and this left him an outsider among his contemporaries. The university eventually suspended Gideon's position, and revoked his stipend, and while his apples survived the cold winter of 1889, his wife did not. Gideon died in his home ten years later, alone and penniless. It is still debated whether Gideon was the author of his own downfall, or whether jealousy and resentment among other University of Minnesota faculty members led to his ultimate demise. However, the Wealthy apple still survives.

Newsletter Spring 2006		page 1 of 5

Gideon's Apple