Description
Ben Davis is a handsome red apple with green and deep red striping and coarse, pale yellow-to-white flesh. It is a large, moderately juicy and crisp fresh-eating or baking apple, its flavor rather mellow. Ben Davis is harvested in mid-October and not only holds up well in storage, its flavor improves as well.
Discovered: Early 1800s, Kentucky, Tennessee, or Virginia
Parentage: Unknown
Harvest: Late Season
History
Ben Davis may have first been grown in Kentucky late in the 1700s by one Captain Ben Davis, his brother, William Davis, and John Hills. This heirloom is a parent of the popular Cortland. Once a most popular southern apple, this heirloom was nicknamed “Mortgage Lifter” it was so profitable an export because it traveled well with little refrigeration.