Practical Pomology : a Field Guide for New England by Sean Turley

Trade paperback format.  A practical guide for apple lovers and growers, with an emphasis on apples historically grown in New England, locally produced here in Portland, Maine (2025)! 

This unique little book is densely packed with information, with over 100 original illustrations and 34 full-color photographs.  Beautiful and useful!!!

Apples are everywhere; so are books about apples. But despite the extraordinary quantity and quality of tomes about pomes, no text has ever been printed that provides a comprehensive, systematic approach to describing and identifying historic varieties of apples—let alone one that condenses the foundational work by pomologists over the last couple of centuries into a simple-to-follow, practical resource for the expert and novice alike.

Practical Pomology: A Field Guide aims to fill that void. Across its pages, you will be taught how to recognize and differentiate between seedling and grafted trees; describe and classify the anatomical features of the apple; and identify and distinguish among the varieties most commonly found in historic orchards. It is a resource that can be pulled off the shelf when deciphering descriptions of lost varieties in antiquated texts and a portable manual you can toss in your backpack when heading out into the field. Whether you are new to pomology or an old hand at describing and identifying pomes, this book should prove to be an indispensable resource.

The process of drafting and designing Practical Pomology began nearly a decade ago. At that time, I was a budding apple enthusiast determined to learn all I could about how to differentiate among the scores of apple varieties growing in lost and abandoned orchards across Maine. 

During my research, I was struck by the lack of any available resource that not only described the characteristics of the fruit that made each cultivar unique but also illustrated the ways in which those characteristics differed. 

While numerous excellent treatises exist on the apple and its anatomy, they were written by pomologists for pomologists—i.e., in a manner designed to advance the academic discourse about apples and not to teach novices like me the basics of the field.

Over time, it became apparent that if I wanted such a resource to exist, I would need to coax it into existence. Fortunately, Maine is home to one of the most—if not the most—accomplished apple expert in the country, John Bunker. Over the years, John patiently shared his expertise and identification process, which he developed through his studies of and extensive work with apple trees since the early 1970s, so I could capture that universe of information in this field guide. Although my name appears on the cover, Practical Pomology is really a translation of the life work of John Bunker; it would not—and could not—exist without him.

The other motivation to write this book was to address a very local problem. Every year, the Hayloft Tent at the Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine, welcomes dozens of folx seeking help in identifying the apples in their lives.

Sometimes they are heirlooms; other times they are varieties lost to time; mostly they are seedlings or the most common orchard apple in Maine, McIntosh. Every year, at the conclusion of the fair, the team committed to help identify apples come together and discuss how we can do more to help educate the broader public about what we do. While we may inspire hundreds of curious fairgoers over the course of a weekend and plant plenty of seeds, the lack of a decisive “next step” for motivated novices can make our work as citizen pomologists feel exclusive or unattainable. This book is meant to close that gap.

The Book

Practical Pomology is divided into three parts. 

The first section provides instruction on how to differentiate between seedling and grafted trees.

Telling the difference between the two is an essential skill to develop, as seedling trees are totally unique (and therefore unidentifiable).

The second section outlines a taxonomical approach for recognizing and naming the various anatomical features of the apple.

These features vary in critical, yet subtle, ways in different specimens and varieties.

The third section contains anatomical photographs of the thirty-four varieties that most commonly grow in historic orchards.

These photographs will serve as an invaluable visual resource when trying to quickly identify apples in the field.

Production Details

Practical Pomology, will be printed at 5.5” x 7.375”.  It is designed to be durable enough to be used in the field and hold up to repeated use; it has a laminated soft cover, rounded corners, and sewn, perfect binding, and is printed on EuroArt silk 80lb paper. It is 150 pages in length.

About the book team:

Sean Turley is an apple historian, photographer, cidermaker and forager and a former columnist for the Portland Press Herald, where he wrote about Maine’s vibrant apple culture. He is located in Portland, Maine. Sean maintains an ever-growing visual catalog of apples on Instagram under his nom de pome, The Righteous Russet. He is the author of Practical Pomology.

Cecilia Ziko is a graphic designer and printmaker located in Portland, Maine. Cecilia designed Practical Pomology.

John Bunker is a writer, historian, orchardist and farmer who has dedicated his life to finding and preserving lost apple varieties. He lives in Palermo, Maine, at Super Chilly Farm. John is the author of two books: Apples and the Art of Detection and Not Far from the Tree. John created more than 100 drawings of specific apple anatomy from which the illustrations in the Taxonomy section of the book are based.

Anastasia Inciardi is a printmaker who specializes in linocuts of food and the inventor of the Mini Print Vending Machine. She is located in Portland, Maine. Ana hand-carved and printed the Blue Pearmain that graces the cover of the field guide.

William Mullan is a graphic designer and photographer based in New York City. He is the author of Odd Apples, a celebration of the wild world of cultivated pomes. William photographed the 34 cultivars that appear in the Common Fruit section of the book.

Addison Wagner is an illustrator and farmer based in Portland, Maine. Addison drew the technical illustrations showing the evolution of the apple from flower to fruit.

Matt Kaminsky is an orchardist, arborist, forager and author who goes by the handle Gnarly Pippins. He is one-half of Meadowfed Lamb, a silvopasture project based in Hadley, Massachusetts, and the author of several texts, including the Pomological Series (in four volumes) and The Wild Apple Forager’s Guide. Matt contributed the foreword to Practical Pomology.