It’s far too valuable to them as it is, which you can see when you catch the glint in Chug’s eye when he so much as talks about his apples or when you see Joyce pull her magnificent apple turnovers from the oven in the orchard store. They’ve been tempted but have never relinquished the land. Joyce and Chug Wilson know these challenges all too well and have had plenty of offers from land developers to plow their trees under in favor of zero-lots or split-level ranches. Like all farming, growing apples is a very challenging undertaking, subject to the whims of weather, the market, insects, environment, and urban sprawl. “We had to import apples from Wisconsin ,” Chug told me during that visit. Chug Wilson called the 2006 crop “a limb-buster,” which was a welcome relief after 2005’s disastrous late-spring freeze, which wiped out the blooms on Wilson’s trees and left them with a harvest of zero. In mid- to late October, the trees are usually heavy-laden with yellow, blush, red, and gold. There is no traffic noise, no blaring advertisements, no background static - only the occasional tickling buzz of a honeybee flying by to see who is appreciating her work. Strolling amidst the well-tended rows of apples, you can feel almost instantly at peace.

One can even enjoy a piping hot apple turnover while strolling through the scenic orchard or enjoy a guided tour on a wagon towed by Chug himself in his big-brimmed hat. At Wilson’s Orchard in Iowa City, owner “Chug” Wilson’s Hawkeye trees have been bearing fruit since 2002, and visitors can pick those apples along with many dozens of other varieties at Wilson’s every fall. Through the efforts of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, cuttings from the original tree have been propagated. How ironic that it now resembles the very same attributes of the Ben Davis that led Stark to seek a replacement. They are bred for shelf life, durability, and crunch but have lost their original flavor. The yellow streaks are gone, replaced by a bright red shine. Today, the fruit that bears the Delicious name bears little resemblance to that original Hawkeye. It has a monument to it, a fence and a private horticulturist to protect it, as well as a festival in its honor in Donnellson, Iowa. As Hiatt had noted all those years ago, though, this little tree “must grow.” The following spring it sent up a new sprout, phoenix-like, right from the middle of the split and thrives to this day not far from the historic covered bridges in Madison County. Hiatt’s Hawkeye was split in two during the storm, and newspapers and radio commentators across the state lamented the demise of the historic tree. With orchards being expensive to replant and war on the horizon, most orchards were turned into corn and soybean fields. In 1940, on Armistice Day, a ferocious ice storm leveled Iowa’s orchards, a blast from which Iowa’s apple industry would never fully recover. They had renamed Hiatt’s Hawkeye after Clarence Stark’s original pronouncement, and the Delicious apple was on its way to becoming the most popular apple variety in the world.Ī Cook’s Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland, by Kurt Michael Frieseīack in Winterset, the original tree continued to flourish in a state that was second only to Michigan in apple production. Sixty years later, Stark had sold more than 10 million trees worldwide that were all descendants of that original tree.

Study led them to the conclusion that this new variety was probably the result of an accidental cross of two very old varieties, the Bellflower and the Winesap. The Stark Brothers Fruit Company bought the rights to Hiatt’s discovery and began taking cuttings from the original tree at Hiatt’s Winterset farm. When Clarence Stark tasted the apple with the unusual oblong shape and the distinctive five bumps on the bottom, he pronounced it “Delicious!” Unfortunately, due to some poor record keeping, Hiatt’s name and address were lost, and it wasn’t until Hiatt reentered the competition the following year that his Hawkeye was officially declared the winner. The Ben Davis apple had a nice appearance and was durable in shipping and weather-hardy but lacking in flavor. The Stark Brothers Fruit Company held the competition as part of their search for an apple tree to replace the then-most-popular tree, the Ben Davis. He sent some of the fruit to a contest in Louisiana, Missouri, which was seeking new varieties of fruit trees, especially apples. To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist.

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