Frank Ross, © SEPS
It takes all the family, plus some extra help, to get in the apple crop at the Johnston brothers’ farm here at Damariscotta Mills, Maine. Each piece of ripe fruit on the Johnstons’ 350 laden trees has to be picked by hand to prevent the bruises that cause spoilage. The reward for 10 days’ work: 1,250 bushels of juicy Northern Spys. Amidst some of this early October bounty are the brothers, Richard (in blue plaid shirt) and Erland (in red shirt). Soon they’ll store the red autumn produce in an earthen cold cellar to supply grocery stores in surrounding towns through the winter months ahead. What’s left will go to a nearby cannery to be turned into sauce and pastry filling for supermarket shelves.
—“Autumn’s Bounty,” Face of America,
October 4, 1958
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