TALE OF TWO APPLES -

The Granny Smith apple (like so many other new varieties of fruit) seems to have been a happy accident with Maria Ann Sherwood-Smith developing the first apples from an apple core that was thrown away and the seeds then germinating - or so the story goes.

The new variety of apples were first popular in N.S.W. and their arrival in Donnybrook also seems to have come about by chance. A Mr. Chapman was dealing with a nursery in N.S.W. and as part of a consignment he was sent a couple of the new apples trees to try out.

The trees did well in Donnybrook and the green apples they produced were good for both cooking and eating. The apples were first known locally as Champan's Late. Cuttings were taken and grafted to other apple trees, the Parke brothers brought in a further 175 trees from N.S.W. and soon the Granny Smith apple came to dominate apple production in the area.

The apple that was really developed in the Donnybrook area is the less well known Lady Williams. This is a red apple that again seems to have come about by accident when a seed germinated and came up near a water tank. The tree was almost killed twice - even being pulled out of the ground on one occasion. The Williams family persisted with the tree and gradually developed a new type of apple from the original sapling.

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