Rooting apple cuttings is not normally a method of propagation. You'd do better grafting or budding onto a rootstock. The correct rootstock will give you some dwarfing which makes fruit care and harvest much easier.

Get some M9 or M26 rootstock and T bud those apples next summer. If the T buds fail try grafting in spring 2014. Continue until you have what you want.

It is not difficult with certain varieties that have root primordia on the bark such as Northern Spy. They are essentially burr knots.

It's almost pointless bu you never know, most don't root.
Layering would be best I.M.O.

I have rooted apple and peach by cutting a section of bark( keeping the brach attached to the mother tree) applying root hormone and wrapping a small peat pot with some peatmoss around it, and after several weeks ....or months, some will take longer to root but you will have a new plant.most woody plants will root given enough time,But for all the effort ,grafting is easier.If you are doing it for fun then go for it, you just don't know how the resultant tree will grow on it's own roots.I read an article a few years back on the honey crisp apple and it almost went under the radar as it was so weak growing on it's own roots in the test plot that they almost garbaged it!But when grafted to a rootstcok with known characteristics....you have something amazing!

thanks for all the info and responses. I mainly want to try this because on the island i live on there are trees that are over 100 years old i am told. i just thought it might be fun to preserve some of these old tree varieties, even though i will not have a clue what they really are until i find a true apple expert on northwest apples
thanks again----bob

The apple trees are likely not on their own rootstocks either if they are tasty apples. I do believe that apple trees on vigorous rootstocks can become beautiful and majestic trees and that some interest in apple preservation should include growing some full sized apple trees, the way they were historically grown on this continent.

Apple varieties are generally preserved by passing on cuttings and grafting them on other trees or rootstocks.

I read in The Grafter's Handbook that the way to get a shy-rooting tree to root on it's own roots is to first graft it to a rootstock, then when it is well established put a metal band around the rootstock above the graft. Then you bury the tree much deeper so that the graft can eventually root and the rootstock will eventually be constricted as the tree grows. (pg.220)

I have thought that I would like to do this if I had enough space. I wish I could find the image of the Belle de Boskoop that inspired this idea in me. But alas, G.11 is the largest I have.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Grafter's Handbook paperback (2003)

Its sad that the Grafter's Handbook is out of print. Hopefully they'll release another edition at some point.

I only discovered it was no longer being printed after my mother-in-law gradually spilled her mug of tea onto it over the course of a drive.