Adam's Apples

There's a story, probably apocryphal, that the Purdue, Rutgers & Indiana apple breeding co-op sprinkled a private imprimatur into the names of many of its apples. The story is that this surprise fingerprint can be found in the names of such varieties as Pristine (1994), Williams Pride (1986), and Enterprise (1993), each in its own way a priceless example of the breeders' art.

Apples are bought by the likes of you and me (with, one hopes, our usual flawless taste). We might be lured by one of those sleek modern names like Zestar or Honeycrisp , crafted to suggest sweetness and a snazzy, jazzy zestfulness. Apple trees, on the other hand, are bought by growers, and sometimes the marketing effort is aimed at them.