[2] This was a time when the major fruit-producing regions in the United States were just beginning to emerge, as farmers worked with the USDA to establish orchards for expanding markets.

Photography was not yet in widespread use as a documentary medium, so the government relied on artists like Newton to produce technically accurate drawings for its publications.

[3][4] Newton was one of more than 50 skilled botanical illustrators hired in this early period—among whom were Elsie Lower, Ellen Isham Schutt, Royal Charles Steadman, and Deborah Griscom Passmore—and she was one of the most productive, turning out more than 1200 finished watercolors for the USDA.

[5] Newton's artwork for the USDA covered a wide range of fruit and nuts, principally apples, of which there are many hundreds of examples.

There are also paintings of strawberries, plums, citrus, persimmons, avocados, and cherries, as well as fruits that are still not commonly grown in the continental United States such as loquat and baobab.