This green to golden yellow apple is of excellent dessert quality. It has crunchy flesh and a sweet floral aroma that stands out amid many other apples in our taste testing. The mother tree is a strong healthy grandmother who has withstood the difficulties of living in the forest, cared for only by Mother Nature. Amid another 100 other apples, pears and walnuts at the infamous Buck’s Ranch, she was planted in the mid 1800s in order to feed the hungry miners and to make hard cider. This apple definitely gave a sweetness to the harsh, new living conditions the miners found themselves in. Resistant to frosts and fireblight.

The mother tree grows at Bucks Ranch, Nevada County near Orleans Flat mining camp at 4100 feet on the San Juan Ridge overlooking the Middle Fork of the Yuba River. The Buck brothers homesteaded this property in the late 1870’s, in part to provide fruit for the thriving mining camp. Amigo’s odyssey with Felix Gillet began in 1970 when he stumbled on this abandoned homestead with more than 75 thriving ancient fruit and nut trees, planted by the Bucks’ from stock purchased from Felix Gillet, the “local” nursery guy, a days horse ride away in Nevada City. The only thing tending those trees in the 70’s were the bears! We began harvesting the fruit and nuts, and discovered their amazing quality, and the trees were healthy despite annual onslaughts from the bears and heavy snows. Now cared for once again, the trees get no irrigation, fertilization or pest management, just occasional pruning. And they still produce great crops, 140 years after they were planted!