Canada is now an apple-growing superpower, but once, much of the country was considered too cold to grow good apples. This was largely changed by one New Brunswick man’s lone self-taught apple breeding. This Canadian Johnny Appleseed was far ahead of his time and built an apple empire spanning the continent, yet today he is largely forgotten.
Francis Peabody Sharp was entirely self-educated, though not necessarily by choice. His dream had always been to go to school to become a doctor. However, he was prone to getting sick easily and decided that was likely not the best career path for him. Instead, he decided to stay on his family’s apple orchard and grow better apples.
Apples were always grown in the Maritimes. 17th-century French explorer Nicholas Denys was likely the first European to plant apple orchards in Canada, planting orchards in Shippagan and Nepisiguit.
Later, what is potentially the Maritimes’ first-ever environmental dispute took place over apples. One Loyalist, Captain E. Stewart, had planted a young orchard of 200 trees on his property in Prince William. The New Brunswick Militia wanted to build a road through his orchard. Stewart kicked the Army off his property. He was arrested and spent 6 months in jail, and the government cut down his orchard.
These apples, however, were not typically for eating. We certainly wouldn’t consider them edible today; they were small, lumpen, sour, and crabby. At the time, they were used for making cider or vinegar.
The orchard Francis Peabody Sharp had grown up on was planted by his grandfather on his mother’s side, Captain Francis Peabody, who had settled in Upper Woodstock.
Growing up on the orchard, Francis and his brothers and sisters were each assigned specific apple trees to care for. This sparked sibling rivalries of trying to make his trees grow bigger than the other kids, which began his experimentation with apple breeding that would spark a continent-wide business empire.
As a young man, Francis began “top grafting” parts of different breeds of trees onto his old trees, allowing rapid experimentation with different types of trees. He would send away to places near — like New England — and far — like Russia — for different seeds and saplings, which he would grow and then graft onto his older trees. This allowed him to experiment with new varieties of apples.
Though he had no education other than the basic schooling at the time, he meticulously researched and systematically documented his methods. His son-in-law, the famous author Tappan Adney, wrote that he was “what we vulgarly term ‘a practical man’ who only attained these practical results by directing himself in every case to ask ‘the reason why.’ … Sharp’s mind was that kind which seeks to discover the inside of things … he accepted no explanation or statement as final. He had to verify it himself.”
One particular apple seed would make him — and his province — famous, yet where it came from was something of a mystery. Scientists argue that it was derived from a Russian apple, while commercial producers argue it was from New England. Deeply offended by these arguments, Francis would adamantly argue until his dying day that the famous seed came from New Brunswick.
From the outset, the mystery seed grew much faster than the seeds it was planted with. Once it got big enough, Francis grafted it onto his orchard. To his annoyance, he didn’t see any apples from it because local kids kept stealing from that specific branch.
He re-grafted the seedling to a second tree — a risky maneuver — that was right outside of his house so he could guard it. Tappan Adney wrote: “When this tree was loaded with fruit, a basketful, it was the wonder of all the country. This was the origin of Sharp’s New Brunswick Apple,” later shortened to “The New Brunswicker.”
For about a century, the New Brunswicker was the most popular apple in Canada.
Francis was also a pioneer of hybridizing apples. This means cross-breeding two parent apple trees to make a whole new fruit. Virtually all of them were crossed with his favourite, the New Brunswicker. Some names of these apples might still be familiar: “Peabody Pink,” “Honey Pink,”
Francis’ daughter, Minnie Bell Sharp, an outspoken individual who would later take over the business, wrote of growing up on the orchard: “My father had the most beautiful garden and orchard which under his magic had blossomed and bore abundantly. It seemed to me in those days that I lived in a veritable fairyland.”
As well as growing fruits, Francis Peabody Sharp was a pioneer in raising bees, with new ways of raising queen bees, and pioneering a method of extracting honey from bees without destroying the hives.
His work on beekeeping was completely forgotten until 1946, when inside the walls of Kingston’s Temperance Hall were found several old newspapers from 1853 detailing his methods. A century later, his techniques were still considered groundbreaking in the world of beekeeping.
By the end of his life, he was very successful with his company, Franklin Sharp Orchards had over half a million apple trees and a network selling apples, ciders and vinegars all over the continent.
He was highly sought after and offered startlingly large sums of money to work for Universities, Canada’s Government, the American Government, and even the Russian Government.
However, as it was, he was a lone master of his craft, far ahead of contemporaries. In an 1890 letter to his daughter Minnie, he wrote “In all departments of fruit culture my researches have played me far in advance of the rest, and it is on account of hints dropped occasionally to visitors that there has been revealed to the leaders the fact that some of their most difficult problems were in their solutions matters of every-day talk with me.”
He consistently refused to work with established institutions, from universities to governments, which led to him largely being forgotten after his death. Had he worked more with others, his work would have been more widely disseminated, so that others could build on it, cementing his reputation. As it were, though he was far ahead of his contemporaries, individually his innovations were gradually discovered elsewhere, and he received little credit.
The St. John Progress newspaper wrote in 1891: “Perhaps, as in the case of most pioneers in the world’s march of progress, succeeding generations will accord him the full measure of the honours which he has fairly won.”
Towards the end of his life, when he was now a very wealthy and well-known man, a grassroots movement arose to present him with a knighthood.
Characteristically, he refused the honour.
