Old Southern Apples

Creighton Lee Calhoun JR

ISBN 10: 0939923378 / ISBN 13: 9780939923373

Published by McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company, Blacksburg, Virginia, 1995

About this Item

A rare copy of the original Old Southern Apples published in 1995 by McDonald & Woodward. Inscribed and signed by Calhoun on the title page. Binding is tight; light wear and wrinkling like it may have been stored in a damp location; jacket is bumped and has a piece torn off front jacket and repaired by tape on the inside. 326 pages including index of apple varieties.

Seller Inventory # 230087

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Old Southern Apples
• Publisher: McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company, Blacksburg, Virginia
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0939923378
• ISBN 13: 9780939923373
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Printing.
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fair
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Book Type: Book

About this title

Synopsis

Old Southern Apples is a delightful and definitive review of the history and uses of apples in the South from Maryland to Texas and Florida to Arkansas. Although apples became a major commercial crop in parts of the South in the late 1800s, for three hundred years southern farm families grew apples as an important, year-round food source. Through the selection and grafting of wild seedlings, Southerners developed unique apple varieties adapted to the climate and soils of the South and suited to specific uses such as drying, cider, apple butter and winter keeping. It is truly astonishing to learn that Southerners developed more than 1300 apple varieties and grew another 300 varieties of northern and European origins.

Old Southern Apples opens with an overview of apple history, culture, and uses in the agrarian South. This is followed by an exhaustive compilation of apple varieties grown in the South before 1928. The more than 1600 varieties are divided into extant and extinct groups, and all known facts concerning the history and description of each apple are given, plus a listing of synonyms.

Appendices include a bibliography, a description of nurseries, which sell old southern apple varieties, and an index of more than 3,600 apple names and synonyms. Forty-eight color plates painted by United States Department of Agriculture staff artists between 1880 and 1930 illustrate important varieties of southern apples. Old engravings and drawings illustrate apple cultivation and propagation practices in the South.

About the Author

Lee Calhoun graduated from North Carolina State University in 1956 with a BS degree in Agronomy. He entered the US Army upon graduation from college, and remained in the military until retiring in 1976 as a lieutenant colonel. Along the way, he earned an MS degree in Bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin. Lee Calhoun presently owns and operates a small nursery in Pittsboro, North Carolina that specializes in old southern apple varieties.