This won't help for new selections, but for an orchard that far north, if you're looking to ID old varieties, a lot of them may have come out of the collections in New York state. Look for a book The Apples of New York by Beach (1903, NY Dept of Ag). It's particularly useful as it describes all aspects of tree and fruit, and covers both varieties which were classics or antiques at the time of writing, and recent introductions as of that date.
There are two volumes, one for early and one for late-season apples. I've got only the first volume, unfortunately, but it helped me a lot, along with a couple of orchard visits down here in VA, to identify retroactively varieties which I enjoyed growing up with 3 old orchards on our farm.
Not limited to apples, but another good reference is Cyclopedia of Hardy Fruits by Hedrick (Macmillan 1938). Can you tell that my tomato enthusiasm is a relative latecomer?
***oops - didn't look at the date! I hope this will be useful to others...
Last edited by gardenpaws_VA; October 16, 2010 at 11:31 PM.
Reason: realized this was 3 yrs out of date - glad people have bumped it!
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