STEPHANIE L. RYAN

SOUTH SHAFTSBURY -- Poet Robert Frost loved trees, wrote about trees, and planted trees -- by the thousand.

Now, thanks to the Friends of Robert Frost, lovers of his poetry can partake in his other passion, by growing a Frost apple tree in their own yards.

All of the apples presented for sale April 24 and 25 will be varieties Frost grew, either here or on his farm in Ripton, though not all will be direct descendants of those specific trees. The trees Frost planted at the Homer Noble farm went wild after his death, said Carole Thompson, director of the Robert Frost Stone House Museum. Cuttings of those varieties came from the heirloom gardens at the Kipling farm in Brattleboro.

"The snow apple is a direct scion of a Frost tree grown right on this property," Thompson said. "The others are more like cousins!" They have the same general DNA as the apples Frost grew himself, but come from other sources.

Museum director Carole Thompson says, "We planted 20 trees in the museum's south pasture as a new display orchard from the first batch in 2008. Frost had almost one thousand apple trees at the Stone House, but his original orchard is in ruin. We thought it would be fun to propagate the old trees on the property by grafting. It's a tricky procedure, so we had the trees made at a nursery. The Frost Snow apple has been the most popular variety, especially since Frost wrote "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" here at the Stone House, she said.

This year's sale will be the Friends' second. Plans for last year had to be scuttled when a storm destroyed nearly the entire crop at the Pennsylvania nursery where the new trees were propagated.

The cuttings, referred to as "budwood," were taken in August 2008 and delivered to Adams County Nursery in Pennsylvania where apple trees are produced for commercial orchards. It took 18 months to make new saplings that are now ready to plant. There are about 100 trees for sale to the public at $80 each.

Apple trees need six hours of sunlight and like neutral soil. Basically, New England is a great place to grow apples. Of course, as Frost said, "Something has to be left to God."

There are five varieties of Frost apple trees offered this year.

* Snow Apple is taken from cuttings at the Stone House. The Snow apple, a parent of the Macintosh, originated in France in the 1600s. The fruit is glossy green with red stripes that mature into a deeper red, with pure white flesh. It is a dessert apple that ripens early.

Frost planted an orchard outside his cabin in Ripton in 1958, at the age of 83. He knew that apple trees take five years to bear, and he may never have tasted the fruit of these trees. He wrote, "There's nothing I like to think about more than apple trees!" There are seven surviving trees at the cabin, although they have gone wild. Thankfully the DNA of apples remains true to the variety, even though these were not propagated from the wild trees at Ripton. They are a marvelous group that exhibits all the things Frost loved about apples: horticulture, history, geography and humanity, yes humanity, including biblical references. The cuttings for the Homer Noble varieties came from the Rudyard Kipling estate in Brattleboro, so they have a dual literary history.

* Red Astrakan: This is a very early apple that originated in Russia. It is not a good keeper, but the burst of flavor in early August is sensational! Fruit medium size, skin yellow, flushed crimson. Flesh firm, coarse, greenish-white, quite tart. Makes flavorful dried apples, and August is a good time for drying. Some old-timers rate this best for pie. Frost also grew this apple at the Stone House. It was one of the "thousand apple trees of some unforbidden variety."

* Gravenstein: This apple was found in Italy in the 1600s by Duke Augustenberg of Castle Graefenstein in Germany, who took it home to propagate. It is an oblong fruit having bright yellow skin with a pinkish-orange flush and light red striping. The creamy yellow flesh is tender, crisp, juicy, and aromatic. Ripens early in most areas and is not a good keeper.

* Sops-of-Wine (Sopsevine) is an ancient English culinary and cider apple. Fruit medium to large, slightly conical, with greenish-yellow skin covered with dark red faint red striping. Flesh is yellow and often stained with pink, tender, aromatic, and not very juicy. There is archival evidence that Frost was concerned about John's Gospel of the Last Supper that mentions the "sop of wine" given to Judas. This is a good example of the apple embedded in religion, not to mention the apple in the Garden of Eden.

* Duchess of Oldenburg: Known as the "King of the Ironclads" for its extreme winter hardiness, this is one of many fine old apples of Russian origin. It arose around the upper Volga region of Russia and was introduced into England around 1817. Very popular as a fine-cooking and fresh-eating apple, Duchess is a medium to large fruit with smooth yellow skin overlaid with a red wash, sometimes completely red when fully exposed to the sun. The whitish flesh is tender, crisp and juicy with a tangy flavor. Ripens August to September and is only a fair keeper. Duchess is a renowned, award-winning pie apple.

The cuttings, referred to as "budwood," were taken in August 2008 and delivered to Adams County Nursery in Pennsylvania where apple trees are produced for commercial orchards. It took 18 months to make new saplings that are now ready to plant. There are about 100 trees for sale to the public at $80 each.

Thompson described the sales, which raise funds for the Friends, as "a lot of fun," saying she has stayed in touch with the people who have Frost's trees.

When the Friends bought the Stone House property, Thompson said, they knew there was an orchard back of it somewhere, but most of the orchard was in ruins, having been left without maintenance, and parts of it having been sold off in subdivisions. "Last winter, I found three of Frost's original trees out in the woods," she said. "I bushwacked my way in there. I cut some branches to make walking sticks. We're going to have walking sticks from some of Frost's original trees."

Thompson said the walking sticks will not be ready at the time of the tree sale, because the wood was cut only this winter, and needs time to dry out. "Frost was famous for walking, and there are pictures of him at Ripton, with walking sticks," she said. He was known for speaking of the "crooked straightness" of a good walking stick, comparing it to the same feature in a good poem.

The second semi-annual Robert Frost Apple Tree Sale will take place on Saturday and Sunday, April 24 and 25 at the Robert Frost Stone House Museum located on Route 7A in Shaftsbury. The fundraising event starts at 10 a.m. and runs through 4 p.m. Quantities are limited, but buyers may purchase as many as desired. The trees are bare-rooted and dormant, standing approximately 4-to-5-feet tall.

The museum opens to the public for the season on May 1. At some point this summer, there will be an exhibit titled, "The Poetry of Trees," tying in both to Frost's apple trees and the 1,000 red pine trees he planted on the site. Some of those trees, 90 years old now, are being harvested, and used -- just as Frost intended.

For more information, contact Carole Thompson at frostnow@sover.net or 802-823-7319. See the museum Web site, www.frostfriends.org/apples.html, for more about the Frost apple program and some information on cultivation.

Contact Stephanie Ryan at sryan@benningtonbanner.com