The Northern Spy was discovered around 1800 in
East Bloomfield, New York, south of
Rochester, New York, as surviving sprouts of a seedling cultivated from stock brought in from
Connecticut that had failed. The
Wagener apple is believed to be one of its forebears. It fell somewhat out of favor due to its dull coloration, irregular shape, tendency of the thin skin to allow bruising, and lack of disease resistance, specifically to
bitter pit and blossom
fireblight, but it is resistant to
woolly aphid and somewhat to
scab. It is not widely available at retail outside its growing regions but still serves as an important processing apple in those areas. The Northern Spy is known for taking as much as a decade to bear fruit, unless grafted to a non-standard
rootstock. In spite of this, it makes an excellent root stock for grafting other varieties to become standard-size trees. A Northern Spy apple tree figures in the poem "Conrad Siever" in
Edgar Lee Masters'
Spoon River Anthology, and in the poetry of
Chase Twichell, whose first book
Northern Spy was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1981. A box of Northern Spies was sent to Senator
Joseph McCarthy by the news staff of the
Toronto Globe and Mail in 1953 as a joke. ==References==