Cox’s, of course. Well, it’s one of my favorites. I planted Cox’s because it bears my name, but also because of the beautiful way this apple came about. In the 1830s in England, a Mrs. Richard Cox, a parson’s wife, walked out of her house one day and saw an apple tree in full bloom. She stopped to consider this lovely sight when she noticed a bee working a particular flower and was struck with the magnificent yet humble way in which God’s world works. She marked this epiphany by tying a piece of yarn to the spur that carried that blossom and later harvested the apple that developed from it.
Now, apples don’t come true to variety from seed. This means that if you plant the seeds of an apple variety, each will develop into a different kind of apple—almost always bitter, runty, and worthless (so Johnny Appleseed planted a lot of bad apples). If you want more of a certain variety, you must cut scion wood from the existing tree and graft it to a rootstock. But Mrs. Cox planted the seeds from her apple. Five trees grew. When they bore fruit, four of them were worthless, but the fifth was wonderfully delicious, with a flowery essence and a rich, winey flavor. It acquired the name Cox’s Orange Pippin and within fifteen years was the most popular apple in England. To this day it’s one of the most popular apples in the world.
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