John Fowler, who “lived on the main road to Blount Springs,” built a commercial apple orchard of about one acre, deliberately keeping his trees short-trunked so loaded limbs “nearly reached the ground,” and lighting protective smudge fires in frost-prone years - sometimes earning $500 per acre in those years. By 1850, “not less than one hundred wagons” of his apples were shipped throughout the state in a single year. George Powell’s 1855 account dates his start to 1817; Mary Gordon Duffee’s account, published decades later, dates it to 1828.
Appears in: Mary Gordon Duffee: The Hermit of Duffee’s Mountain - Matthew Duffee’s own orchard included Fowler’s Winter Pearman and Fowler apple varieties.