Voices of the Bay

A Warren Apple Farmer Continues His Family Legacy

Spencer Morris on embracing his family's apple growing roots

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Growing up in the Hudson River Valley of New York state, Spencer Morris was surrounded by his family’s apple orchards. Recently, curiosity to learn more about the intricacies of growing and harvesting the fruit has evolved into a hands-on passion. Leasing land in Touisette, he has planted an orchard with over 30 varieties – some of which have not been grown in Rhode Island for over a hundred years. A Warren resident since 1992, Spencer received a degree in Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design and is a past president of the Warren Perseveration Society. He and his wife Allison Newsome, a bronze and high-fired ceramic sculptor, raised their children Arden and Owen in a home built in 1864 by one of the Swansea Warren Cole brothers. In 1984, Spencer established NitroTap Ltd. which specializes in dispensing, preservation and display systems he creates for restaurants and wine companies. Spencer can be contacted at spencer@nitrotap.com


I grew up surrounded by my grandfather’s orchard, but I never learned much about apple growing. When he passed at an early age the trees were cared for by a neighboring farmer. The practice was never passed down until my father and mother retired from other businesses, and my sisters and I had moved away. The prospect of this coming to us forced some quick study and the hook had been set. I started looking into apple growing and got absorbed in the history reading The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan and other works on pomology. When I was a kid, small apple farms were a dying business, so now the issue is how to generate any real revenue, especially as a start up enterprise here in Rhode Island for the next generation. The farmer’s markets have been a huge boom. Another notion is to make cider down the road but I’m not there yet.

At the turn of the century we probably had 10,000 different types of apples. One of the key aspects of my project is to grow more regional varieties, specifically some Rhode Island varieties. The most prevalent crop in New England was known as Rhode Island Green, but I also have Dyer, Peck’s Pleasant and Tolman Sweeting. I’m not being a chauvinist about Rhode Island varieties but I love them! Three years ago I planted approximately 100 trees from nursery stock of 30 different varieties on two-and-a-half acres of leased land. I now have 600 trees and I plan for 1,300 to produce 1,200-1,500 bushels. I have had to start a small nursery to make the uncommon varieties that I want to grow. Learning how to graft selected fruit wood to different rootstocks has been an experimental challenge, but amazingly when it works some of the trees produce fruit in the first year. In my nursery here I am propagating about 400 hundred trees and I will add some every year to the orchard.

Friends of mine own Pastiche Fine Desserts on Federal Hill and I insisted that they invest in two varieties; Calville Blanc d’Hiver – a 17th century French winter apple with more vitamin C than an orange, known for fabulous great French apple desserts – and Bramleys – a British tart, large cooking apple. This is the kind of project that invigorates the local culture, which is important to me. My prerequisite for the land was something in Warren. I feel very fortunate to have great support and interest from our community here. It is so exciting to go out to the orchard this time of year. The leaf canopy is revealing the fruit which is getting big and starting to color and you realize, wow, there are a lot of apples!”

Spencer Morris, NitroTap Ltd, risd, rhode island school of design, pastiche fine desserts, warren ri, apple orchards, apple farming, Calville Blanc d’Hiver, Bramleys, the bay magazine, nina murphy, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World, Michael Pollan

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