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4-H helps restore almost-extinct southern apple

by Lucas Furman: 4-H member

Local 4-H’rs are helping to bring back a piece of living history.

Last spring they did a project grafting an almost extinct tree, the Shell Apple.

It’s been said that very few kinds of apples will bear in the coastal South, but the Shell Apple is a rare exception. The apple not only bears here, but was the basis of an apple industry long ago.

The history of the Shell Apple began over 150 years ago in Escambia County, Alabama.

Mr. Greenberry Shell was an enterprising agriculturalist who was born in 1841. He planted an apple orchard near the intersection of highways 49 and 40, about 10 miles north of Brewton.

This enterprise developed into a business that gave the town its name -- Appleton.

The apple business had a large grading shed, complete with shipping barrels and a cider press. During harvest, Mr. Shell’s son, Andrew, made two trips per day by wagon to deliver the apples to the freight office in Brewton.

They were shipped to northern markets and soon became known as ‘Shell Apples.’

Mr. Shell also produced young trees of the Shell Apple, which sold readily. Within a few years, nearly every farm over a wide area had at least one tree producing fruit for family use.

Soon after the turn of the century transportation improved fruits and other foods became more readily available at markets and the decline of homegrown fruit began.

Old orchards died or were removed, and backyard trees also declined or died.

At one time there were 1,355 southern apple varieties, each adapted to certain areas or even communities within the region; and to date only 231 have escaped extinction.

The Shell Apple almost met that fate.

Fortunately, an old tree was found near Jay, Florida; and the farmer allowed some cutting, or scion wood, to be taken.

This selection has been perpetuated by grafting onto superior rootstocks over the past ten years.

A recent report from an individual in Pace, Florida described two eight-year-old trees that yielded 8 to 10 five-gallon bucketfuls in 2006.

4-H’rs recently held a sale of a limited supply of one-year-old grafted trees at the County Extension Office (photo).

Editors note: For more information about 4-H contact Vickie B. Mullins, Santa Rosa County 4-H Coordinator, at 623-3868; or 939-1259, Ext. 1360 for south county residents. 4-H programs and activities in Santa Rosa County are open to boys and girls ages 5 to 18 regardless of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex or handicap.