Adam's Apples

IF THEE MUST GROW, THEE MAY  ¶  I never thought to taste this apple, discovered by a farmer in Iowa nearly 150 years ago. It has been superseded by history. Hawkeye was purchased by Stark Brothers and then modified by sport after sport to be nearly unrecognizable. You surely know it, as Red Delicious .

Does it look big? Today's handsome apple is a hefty 12 inches around. Its name, a mere number, betrays the fact that it has not been released as a branded variety by the New York State apple breeding program at Cornell.

Arlington's farmers market ends on a day of fog and drizzle. There were 22 different kinds of apples to buy at Arlington's farmers market on Wednesday, the last of the year.

Some apples are innately big or small, but also apples can mature at different sizes depending on thinning or on growing conditions.  However, the long thin stems on today's pretty, red-blushed treat suggest that Sops in Wine never gets very large. That stem could not support a large heavy fruit. The apple (on the small end of medium-sized) is ribbed and oblate. The crimson blush, though saturated in spots, is mostly streaky, over a pale green yellow.

Twenty-six different kinds of apples were on offer this morning at Volante Farms in Needham, Massachusetts.

The apples hung heavy, sweet, and ready in Harvard, Massachusetts, yesterday.