I began with my only dwarf tree. Its fruit was small, but looked much like Red Delicious. Indeed, it also tasted like Red Delicious, with crisp, sweet texture and tough skin. I was already hooked (I'm easy), and anxious to taste all the others:
Tree number two had fruit which ripens early, and most of them had already fallen and been fed to the cattle. But I found a good looking apple and gave it a try, finding it comparatively soft, with extra flavor:
Tree number three bore apples which were colorful, crisp, sour and flavorful:
Tree number four's apples were crisp and sweet, with a chewy skin. At this point I was wondering how I could have lived with all these yummy, free apples for so long without eating any:
Tree number five had large, round, red fruit which were soft, flavorful and medium sweet with a chewy skin. They tasted the way I remembered McIntosh apples to taste, though it had been many years since I'd had one:
Tree number six bore apples which were simply sour. Perhaps they were a cooking apple? We had Jonathon apples when I was a boy and they too were sour - but good to cook with.
Then I got to the pear tree. I'd tasted the pears before, but they were always hard as rock. I picked this beauty up off the ground and gave it a try. To my surprise, it was as soft and sweet as any Bartlett I'd ever tasted. The next tree was a cherry which had no fruit this year and there were other apple trees without fruit, so I walked around to the other side of the house:
Once on the other side of the house, I tried a yellow apple. This tree was obviously a wild seedling, for it grew up entangled with a flowering crab. Its fruit was not large, but it tasted for all the world like Yellow Delicious, with possibly a hint of banana flavor:
A few feet from the yellow apples was the Prairie Rose Flowering Crab. I'd never noticed before this year, but its fruit were almost as big as apples - so I gave one a try. Yechh! Sour, sour, sour. I had to spit it out. I guess this is why they say not to eat the little green apples:
There also were two apple trees along the county road, both of which produce abundantly. I suspect they are wild seedlings, so perhaps hybrid vigor explains their bounty. The first one had lots of ripe apples, so I tasted one. At the risk of hyperbole, I would call this the perfect apple, perhaps the best I've ever tasted:
And not only was it tasty, it produces like this every year:
The final apple tree always produces early, and was almost bare of fruit. I tried a few from the ground but they were too soft. Then I found a good one, a recent windfall. It too was rather soft, with a mild taste. That tree just before this one was a hard act to follow. That was the end of my tasting tour. Feel free to leave a comment if you think you can identify any of the varieties:
