Americans have always had a soft spot for apples. Still, not every apple is easy to love.

Take the homely Knobbed Russet. "It looks like a potato run over by a truck," grower Herb Teichman says. But close your eyes and bite into one, and the Knobbed Russet just might change your mind about how an apple should -- and once did -- taste: crisp, sweet, bursting with flavor.

Teichman has experienced 250 similar apple revelations, give or take a few. That represents the number of varieties of heritage apples he grows at Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm, in Eau Claire, Michigan. (Teichman, 78, says he has lost track of the exact count.)

Collecting apple varieties such as Calville Blanc, Kandil Sinap, Chenango Strawberry, and others that most people have never heard of has become a passion as well as a profitable business. "You'll make more on a bushel of unusual apples than you will on a whole truckload of another apple," Teichman says.

Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm, situated on 450 verdant acres 100 miles east of Chicago, prides itself on being a bit of a throwback in a time when most apples are bred to travel thousands of miles without bruising, and fresh fruit vies with potato chips for Americans' grocery dollars.

That's a big step down for the apple, a fruit that arrived with the colonists and for centuries was considered an essential food. At the time of the Civil War, some 800 apple varieties were commercially viable (compared with about 30 today). The look of an apple was less important than how long it would keep without spoiling. Cider ruled.

Teichman's father caught the orchard-growing bug shortly after World War I, and the family settled on elevated land close to Lake Michigan, where the fruit would be less exposed to damaging frosts. They grew apples and peaches, and, of course, Michigan's famous cherries.

See sources for seedlings as well as pick-your-own and mail-order apples.