Apple Index - "H"

Description: Fruit above medium, roundish conical; skin yellow with a pale reddish tint and faint stripes mostly on the sunny side; dots numerous, gray. Flesh yellowish, granular, aromatic. Ripe August/September.

History: Hackworth almost certainly originated with Dr. Nichodemus Hackworth (1816-93) of Morgan County, Alabama. He was a dentist and a nurseryman, but little else is known about him.   Hackworth apples were very popular in Alabama until World War II for use in pies, sauce, and fresh eating. An old Alabama nursery catalog says, “The real all summer apple, bears fruit every day in August.”

Uses: Cooking, Sauce, Fresh Eating

Description: Fruit small, roundish oblate to oblate, slightly conical; skin smooth, thick, mostly covered with clear or dull red; dots numerous, large, white or yellow. Flesh yellow, tender, juicy, fine-grained, aromatic, subacid. Ripe October/November.

History: This apple was believed extinct until found by Tom Brown in 2002.  The Hall originated on the farm of a Mr. Hall in Franklin County, North Carolina. It was called an old variety in 1863. The Magnum Bonum was said to have been grown from a seed of the Hall in 1828, which means the Hall probably originated before 1800. Early nursery catalogs called it Small Hall, probably to differentiate it from another apple known as Large Hall.

Uses: Fresh Eating, Cooking, Stores well

Description: Fruit medium, roundish or sometimes lightly oblate; skin pale green partly covered with an orange to pale red blush; dots large, numerous, white. Ripe September/October.

History: Originated in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and first mentioned in 1858 as “equal to the best Newtown Pippin.” Probably named for James H. Hammond, governor of South Carolina in the 1840s and a noted agricultural reformer.

Uses: Fresh Eating, Cooking

Description: Fruit medium or above, roundish, often lobed and five-sided; skin smooth, yellow, sometimes with a faint blush; dots few, russet or pale whitish. Flesh white or light yellow, crisp, juicy, acid to subacid. Ripe mid-August.

History: Originated with Marston Harris of Rockingham County, North Carolina, and popular in that area around 1860 as the tree is vigorous and productive.

Uses: Cooking

Description: Fruit medium to small, roundish oblong; skin yellow with rough, distinct, black specks. Flesh yellow, rich and sweet, though rather dry and tough. Ripe early October in Virginia and keeps well.

History: An old cider apple from Essex County, New Jersey. At one time, New Jersey was the most important cider-making area in this country, and the Harrison was much used for making “a high colored cider of great body.” Long considered extinct, a Harrison tree was rediscovered growing in Livingston, New Jersey, in 1976.

Uses: Cider, Stores well

Description: Fruit medium to large, roundish to somewhat oblong, quite conical, knobbed at the base; skin thick, smooth, glossy, taking a high polish when rubbed, clear yellow, washed over most of the surface with red and striped with indistinct darker red; dots numerous, small, whitish. Flesh yellowish, moderately fine-grained, breaking, juicy, mild subacid to sweet with the distinctive “Delicious” taste. Ripe September/October.

History: It hardly seems necessary to point out how this variety has replaced almost all the older apple varieties in southern orchards and gardens. The unripe, starchy Red Delicious apples found in supermarkets bear little resemblance to a southern grown, properly ripened Delicious, an apple of high flavor and aroma. This apple first grew in the orchard of Jesse Hiatt of Peru, Madison County, Iowa.  The 1907 USDA Yearbook says that the original tree was a sprout from the rootstock of a Yellow Bellflower tree, the top of which had been destroyed about 1875.

Uses: Fresh Eating, Stores well

Rediscovered by Tom Brown near Robbinsville, North Carolina. Described as medium size or above, roundish conical; skin pale green, often with a rosy blush on sunny side. Ripe October and a good keeper.

Description: Fruit below medium sized, roundish; skin greenish yellow, blushing pinkish to sometimes rather red on sunny side; dots inconspicuous; cavity acute, shallow, sometimes with russet spilling over the top, stem long and somewhat thin; basin shallow, narrow with closed calyx.  Ripe July.

History: A local apple long grown around Whitsett, North Carolina. Scions were given to Lee Calhoun by Henry Foust.

Description: Fruit above to below medium, oblate to roundish, conical, often lopsided and ribbed; skin green or pale yellow, sometimes with a pinkish orange blush on the sunny side and often having spots and patches of russet; dots numerous, pale gray, submerged. Flesh greenish white, soft, slightly acid. Ripe June/July.

History: The accepted history of this apple is that W. H. Knight of Hopkins County, Kentucky, originated Henry Clay before 1890. It was trademarked and introduced by Stark Bro’s Nursery about 1910 and was advertised by them as the earliest-ripening yellow apple, earlier and of better quality than Yellow Transparent.

Uses: Cooking, Sauce

Description: Fruit very small, about one and one-half inches in diameter, round; skin green, usually nearly covered with dull or purplish red; dots numerous, large, whitish. Flesh firm, fibrous, acid, astringent. Ripe September.

History: This is the most celebrated cider apple ever grown in the South, making a dry cider unsurpassed in flavor and keeping ability. Trees nearly a hundred years old were found in Virginia by Coxe in 1817.

Uses: Excellent Cider, Stores well

Description: Fruit medium or below, roundish; skin very smooth, light yellow or greenish yellow sometimes with a faint bronze blush; dots numerous, small, green; stem medium in length in a deep, narrow, russeted cavity; calyx closed; basin shallow; flesh yellowish, tender, not very juicy, very sweet.  Ripe early August. 

Very sweet apple used mostly for baking and drying and sold all over the South.  Thought to be one of the oldest American Apples, having originated in Plymouth County Massachusetts in the mid 1600's.  Its name refers to the tendency of the tree to have a long trunk between the lowest limbs and the ground.  The tree is vigorous and productive.

Uses: Cooking, Drying

Description: Large, oblate, sometimes oblique; skin rough, green with a red blush and some russet; flesh very firm, juicy, almost acid. Ripe October and a good keeper.

History: There are reports that this mountain apple was once grown in Wilkes, Ashe, and Graham Counties in North Carolina. Tom Brown found a single tree near Hays in 2002.

Uses: Fresh Eating, Stores well

This apple is originally from South Carolina.  Fruit is medium, round, conical. Skin yellow. Flesh white, tender, juicy, rich subacid.  Ripe August in NC.

 Found by Tom Brown of Clemmons, North Carolina.

Description: Fruit medium or above, round, slightly conical; skin yellow, mostly covered with pink and red stripes; dots small, inconspicuous. Flesh light yellow, crisp, juicy, subacid. Ripe August.

History: About 1921 two trees of an unknown apple variety were noticed in the home orchard of J. W. Kincaid, five miles south of Weatherford, Texas. First named Kincaid, this variety was renamed Holland for G. A. Holland, a prominent citizen of Weatherford.  Stark Bro’s Nursery began selling this Texas apple in the 1930s and renamed it Summer Champion, a name almost universally used today.

Uses: Fresh Eating, Sauce

Description: Large fruit, deep yellow in color, tender, crisp, very juicy, and with a most delicious, aromatic, spicy flavor. Begins to ripen the last of June and continues through July and into August.

History: Hollow Log was listed from 1924 to 1928 by Valdesian Nurseries of Bostic, North Carolina: “Originated in Rutherford County, North Carolina, being a seedling found near a hollow log.”

Uses: Fresh Eating, Cooking

Description: Fruit Medium or above, roundish to oblong, very conical; skin completely covered in bright red, no stripes, has a light bloom; dots numerous, medium sized, whitish; stem rather short in a deep, narrow, russeted cavity; calyx usually open; basin wide, shallow, lumpy; flesh whitish, moderately juicy, chewy, mild subacid to almost sweet.  Ripe September

History:  This is a more modern cross between Jonathan x Delicious made in 1952 at the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station.  Lee obtained scions from the USDA Germplasm Repository in Geneva NY.  He was hoping it would be the old Georgia apple listed in the extinct section of his book, but it turned out to be this more modern variety.  He thought it was a lovely and tasty apple that was adapted to the South, so he kept it in his orchard. 

Uses: Fresh Eating, Stores well

Description: This medium-size apple has yellow skin often striped pinkish and ripens August/September.

History: Downing (1869) describes an apple called Honey Sweet (with the synonym Honey Cider) as a good dessert and cider apple. An apple named Honey Sweet was rediscovered by Elwood Fisher in the early 1960s in the Shenandoah Valley.

Uses: Fresh Eating, Cider

Description: Fruit large, roundish oblate, slightly conical; skin mostly splashed and striped with two shades of dark red, sometimes almost black, with a light bloom; dots large, numerous, conspicuous, light colored, interspersed with patches of russet. Flesh yellowish, firm, tender, moderately juicy, sprightly subacid. Ripe September/October and a good keeper.

History: Hoover is first mentioned in the 1856 catalog of Pomaria Nurseries of Pomaria, South Carolina, where it is said to be a seedling from Edisto, South Carolina. In 1908 the USDA said of it: “In passing through the mountain sections of North Carolina, one sees this variety very commonly. During the fall, it is the one most often brought to the stations for sale to passengers on the trains.”

Uses: Fresh Eating, Stores well.

Description: Fruit medium to almost large, roundish, often lopsided and oblique, ribbed; skin thick, green becoming yellow when ripe, sometimes with a slight reddish tinge or blush on the sunny side, with irregular russet blotches or freckles all over the apple; dots small, sunken, greenish, often areole. Flesh yellow, firm, rather juicy, briskly subacid until fully ripe. Ripe late July/August.

History: This was certainly the most popular apple grown for home use in the South before 1930. Warder (1867) describes it as “another southern favorite, especially as a useful family apple.”  Horse is a very old variety, and its origin is not known with certainty. Its origin was attributed to Nash County, North Carolina, by a USDA report written in 1869, but this is suspect as it was a very old apple even then. “Horse Apples” were listed in a November 4, 1763, advertisement in the Virginia Gazette newspaper published in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Uses: Cooking, Drying, Cider, Apple Butter

Description: Fruit medium or above, slightly oblate; skin mostly covered with red and some stripes; dots scattered, rather large, whitish. Flesh whitish, crisp, juicy, subacid. Ripe August/September.

History: Lee Calhoun collected this unknown but lovely, good-tasting apple in 1992 from a Mr. Huffman of Kimesville, North Carolina, and named it for him.

Uses: Fresh Eating

Description: Fruit large, sometimes very large, roundish oblate; skin mostly covered with red without stripes if exposed to the sun, a brown russet netting (heavy in some years) overlays the skin and roughens it; dots numerous, large, russet. Flesh white tinged yellowish, crisp, juicy, vinous, aromatic, almost sweet. A very good August apple. When fully ripe, it tastes like a strawberry. Ripe August/ September.

History: Hunge originated in the 1700s, as a “Hunge’s” apple was listed by a Norfolk, Virginia, nursery in 1805. It was described at the 1858 American Pomological Society meeting as “an old North Carolina variety.’

Uses: Multipurpose