My son and I were hiking up at Montebello Open Space Preserve in the hills above Palo Alto, CA a few days ago. There’s an abandoned orchard there on Black Mountain; I don’t see the trees producing any fruit any more. It’s always a bit heart-wrenching to see abandoned orchards. The ranch was owned by George Morell, a wealthy newspaper publisher (the Palo Alto Times). His ranch plus the Winship and Johnson ranches are now the Montebello OSP.
bet he had all kinds of apple varieties likely- Yeah, i spend a bit of time at old homestead and always think about how they made it- I mean these places (or rather foundations) are way way back in the woods i n the middle of nowhere- must have been very hard to make it there- fruit trees were a big deal back then- as was maple sugar (I see lots of evidence of sugaring operations too- ) hand dug wells- hand built rock fences-
And today i panic if the electricity goes out for an hour lol- (Not really- we grew up living off the land too- just not as totally as did our ancestors)