Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/34757
As well as growing fresh apples, Jack Feil grows cider apples, including Hewes Crab, a variety that originated in Virginia around 300 years ago. Apple Capital of the World, Feil relates. That’s how Wenatchee claimed that title—before it ever became known for its Red Delicious. “Spitzenberg is just an excellent all-round vari- ety,” Feil enthused. “My grandmother used to make what she called a schnitzel pie, and she used the Spitzenberg. That pie was something out of this world.” Spitzenberg is a large, round, red apple with a somewhat tart flavor. It’s one failing is that it doesn’t store well, which is why Feil is trying to improve on it. Tough times It was his grandmother who started the fruit stand at the orchard, which is on a highway that used to be the main route between Seattle and Spokane before Interstate 90 was built. His parents, Harold and Clara, bought an adjoining orchard. After some tough times during the Depression, his parents lost their orchard but managed to keep the original Feil orchard. Jack trained as a pharma- cist, but returned to work at the orchard in 1953 after serv- ing in the U.S. Army. He has operated it since his father died in 1964. The fruit stand is open from cherry season in June “When you bite into it, the aroma goes up your nose and the juice comes down your chin.” —Jack Feil through April, so Feil needs a range of varieties that mature at different times. He has the summer apple Yellow Transparent and Arkansas Black, which doesn’t mature until November. He has Ralls Janet, an eighteenth-century variety that a Japanese breeding program crossed with Red Delicious to produce the Fuji apple. Ralls Janet also went by several other names, including Neverfail (because it blooms late and is not susceptible to frost damage). He also has Splendour, a chance seedling from New Zealand that was not a commer- cial success in its own right, perhaps because of its tender skin, but is the parent of several new varieties including Pacific Rose, New Zealand Beauty, Nicola, and Aurora. Feil personally likes varieties derived from Cox’s Orange Pippin, such as Karmin de Sonneville (a cross of Cox and Jonathan) and Fiesta (a cross of Cox and Idared), and is using Ribston Pippin (thought to be a parent of Cox) in his breeding efforts. He has Enterprise, GoldRush, and other disease-resistant apples from the Purdue, Rutgers, and University of Illinois (PRI) cooperative breeding program, as well Macoun and more recent releases from New York’s breeding program at Cornell. He describes the Hawaii apple (a Gravenstein and Golden Delicious cross) as a tremendous apple, though it never became popular, perhaps because of poor cosmetics. So, which is his favorite apple? “If I go out in the orchard looking for an apple, and there’s a Red Delicious hanging that’s ripe, I will probably eat that,” he said. “I do like a Spitzenberg—it’s a really good cooking apple, it’s an all-purpose apple—and I will eat that, too, but I like a Delicious. There’s something about them. When you bite into it, the aroma goes up your nose and the juice comes down your chin.” Like his customers, Feil enjoys Honeycrisp. “But I hate to eat a good Honeycrisp because they’re worth so much money at the stand. I’m eating my profit,” he joked. Nowadays, his orchard manager Lupe Torres and fruit stand manager Octavio Torres do much of the day-to day-work, but Feil still loves to go out into the orchard to check on his trees. His apple breeding is a hobby, not an occupation, he says. “But it’s such a nice hobby. Maybe in several more years I’ll have something special. I’m so happy I’m alive and enjoying life.” • Jack Feil had a sign made for his fruit stand of a favorite quote from The Apple Tree, which Liberty Hyde Bailey wrote in 1922. It reads: Because there are so many different folks, a person has a right to gratify his legitimate tastes. If he wants 20 or 40 kinds of apples for his personal use, running from “Early Harvest” to “Roxburry Russet,” he should be afforded the privilege… There is merit in variety itself. It provides more points of contact with life, and leads away from uniformity and monotony. www.goodfruit.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER JUNE 2011 19