Pomology

Who knows but this chance wild fruit, planted by a cow or a bird on some remote and rocky hill-side, where it is as yet unobserved by man, may be the choicest of all its kind, and foreign potentates shall hear of it, and royal societies seek to propagate it, though the virtues of the perhaps truly crabbed owner of the soil may never be heard of, -- at least, beyond the limits of his village?

...Every wild-apple shrub excites our expectation thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson to man! So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate; and only the most persistent and strongest genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth.
~Henry David Thoreau

When I look at these pomological images (pomology -- the branch of botany that studies and cultivates fruit), I am delighted by the care that Amanda Almira Newton has given to the details. It reminds me of the way a poet notices the natural world.

I'm also a bit dismayed that the grand variety displayed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection is nowhere to be found in our grocery stores.

Golden Ball apple
by Amanda Almira Newton
U.S.D.A. Pomological Watercolor Collection, Beltsville, MD

Black Ben apple
by Amanda Almira Newton
U.S.D.A. Pomological Watercolor Collection, Beltsville, MD

Roman Stem apple
by Amanda Almira Newton
U.S.D.A. Pomological Watercolor Collection, Beltsville, MD

Spitz apple
by Amanda Almira Newton
U.S.D.A. Pomological Watercolor Collection, Beltsville, MD

Red Astrachan apple
by Amanda Almira Newton
U.S.D.A. Pomological Watercolor Collection, Beltsville, MD

Pumpkin Sweet
by Amanda Almira Newton
U.S.D.A. Pomological Watercolor Collection, Beltsville, MD

Goodwin apple
by Amanda Almira Newton
U.S.D.A. Pomological Watercolor Collection, Beltsville, MD