Peter Baldwin has seen a lot of ups and downs in the apple ladder business but he’s still reaching for that top rung.

Baldwin has been making wooden apple ladders for nearly 20 years and his are now the preferred choice among apple growers from Maine to Minnesota. His Brooks business is the only one east of the Mississippi still making wooden apple ladders. Still, Baldwin’s traditional designs with rails made of big-tooth aspen and rungs of ash are what make his ladders a popular option over his metal competition.

“Wooden ladders are more esthetically pleasing, are warm to the touch and are made from a renewable resource,” said Baldwin. “Aluminum is energy intensive both in mining and production. They [aluminum ladders] are cold and slippery, which can be a problem on a frosty morning and they also conduct electricity. Some apple pickers have been electrocuted by aluminum ladders touching wires.”

Baldwin said fruit pickers feel more secure on a wooden ladder. It only takes a bend to ruin a metal one, while a wooden ladder can handle the shifting weight of the picker and the uneven ground of the orchard.

“A picker needs to carry his ladder around all day. It needs to be light and balanced because you’re out in a field where nothing is level,” said Baldwin. “It’s a specialty ladder that serves a purpose.”

They also are pleasing to the eye: gently curving from a wide base to a narrow or pointed top. Baldwin said the preference of pointed or open top depends on where the orchard is located. Different geographic locations exclusively use one style ladder and each uses the same arguments as the other as to why their choice of ladder is the best.

In New York’s Champlain Valley, growers prefer pointed ones. In the Lake Ontario region, it’s the open top. In the Hudson Valley it’s mixed, while Michigan and Virginia farmers like open ladders. In Maine, it’s the pointed ladder.

The first apple ladder was simply a spruce pole that was split and had rungs notched into it. It was tied at the top. A narrow top made the ladder suitable for poking up through the branches. Ladders have been refined over the centuries but still have the basic design.

Childhood memories led Baldwin into the ladder business. During the early 1980s he was making wooden windmill blades and was looking for another product to fill in the gaps. He grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley and his relatives owned apple orchards. He remembered an old peddler who used to travel from farm to farm hawking his wares.

“His name was Mr. Simpson. He had an old truck with ladders and lawn furniture hanging off the sides,” recalled Baldwin. “He’d get an order from one farm in the area and then head over to the next one. He did that all up and down the valley.”

When he started out in 1984, Baldwin did the same thing. He focused on Maine farmers and also would attend fairs. He would take an order and when he loaded up his truck to make a delivery, he would add a few more ladders in case a neighboring orchard was interested.

It wasn’t too long before Baldwin realized that he would have to land out-of-state orders if he wanted to expand his business. Maine’s annual crop of apples is only 1 million bushels while New England accounts for about 7 million. The Hudson Valley, alone, produces 7 million. The Lake Champlain region and Michigan yield 25 million. Pennsylvania and Virginia raise another 20 million bushels.

“The scale of the operation needed to grow. I knew if I was going to make the effort, it had to pay the freight. If I wanted to sell more ladders, I had to follow the market,” said Baldwin. “I had to go where the farmers were and that’s what I did. It got so I was going farm to farm across the Northeast and began to be away from my home and family for long stretches. That’s when I developed a dealer network.”

“The Baldwin ladder is a pretty well-known trademark,” he said. “Sort of the Cadillac.”

And, like a fine automobile, Baldwin ladders are handcrafted from quality materials. Baldwin’s shop is a former cattle barn on a back road in Brooks. He mills his stock from raw logs and uses the scrap to heat his home. The wood shavings go to local dairy farmers.

Having an engineering background, he has designed the machinery needed to shave, shape and fashion his ladders. The production line is a system of hydraulic clamps and radial saws that run along a track. Holes for the rungs are drilled on a special jig. Every wooden rail and rung is treated with preservatives before they are fitted together.

Baldwin uses native ash for the rungs and Big-Tooth Aspen, a type of poplar found in Maine, for his rails. The aspen is strong and light, making it an ideal wood for ladders.

“It has to be straight and defect free,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to find. That’s why I pay more than people can sell it to others for. They make a lot more selling it to me than for pulp or veneer.”

But all is not well in the ladder and apple business. Changing weather conditions over the last few years have cut into the crop as have the flood of apples from the West Coast, South America and China. Consumers are beginning to acquire a taste for fresh apples from the Southern Hemisphere over stored Macintosh from Maine.

Freak winds, frosts and droughts have hit the region from Maine to Mississippi. Imports have taken a bite out of the domestic market and put a dent in sales of Baldwin ladders as well. As orchards convert from standard sized to dwarf trees of hybrid fruit promising greater yields, the market began to tighten.

“The jury is not back totally on whether dwarf or semi-dwarfs are the best. Some of these small trees may be affected by frost or their shallow root system. Some farmers have said that in high winds they have had apple trees rolling across their fields like tumbleweeds,” said Baldwin.

“I knew that the smaller trees would cut into my business but I didn’t expect it to drop off as much as it did. I’m just going to have to hang in there and ride it out accordingly.”

For information about the ladders, Baldwin can be reached at 75 Hall Hill Road, Brooks, Me. 04921, by phone at 772-3654 and on the Web at www.peterbaldwinarts.com/ladders.