Your best bet is to call an arborist. You can trim an apple tree, but I'm not even remotely sure if you can trim a 100 year old apple tree. You can find a local arborist near you at this website:

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.isa-arbor.com/findArborist/findarborist.aspx

First some questions; their answers might pull up to the forefront in your realization what you probably already know needs to be done.

* Does the pool leak?

* If the debri is kept cleaned away, and you are able to keep the pool serviced and maintained properly, will it then be adequate for the needs you and your family have concerning a pool?

* Does the pool hold a high enough place in you and your family's priorities to justify the bite out of you budget that any major and minor repairs the pool may presently or in the near future cost?

* Are the apple trees the only trees which need to be removed for the pool area's benefit?

* Will you be happier if the pool is brought up to a better level of enjoyment, even if that will require the apple trees being remove, Or will you be happer to keep the apple trees for preserving some of the "history of the place;" even if, that would mean the pool had to be filled in with dirt?

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As per your question about topping the trees to make them short enough for you to reach the fruit. That would set them up to be invaded by pests and for the trees to decline and die soon anyway. Even if the pest and fungi did not invade, the topped trees could no longer reach enough light to feed their root systems and to stay strong and healthy.

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As to the issue of the apple trees being a part of the history of the place. In the condition they are in right now are they really representing their history.

Orchards are usually taken care of, and owners of orchards keep the woods and volunteer seedlings at bay. The condition you describe that these remaining apple trees are currently growing in, sounds like they are a far cry from what they historically used to be.

The damage from years of neglect can not be restored in the way you are thinking. If so, you would have to do what ever it takes to preserve the trees. That would mean clearing away all the trees, brush, and overgrowth from around them and return their environment back to an orchard conditon. That means the woods must be kept back and out; the swimming pool must be filled-in or removed since it is not appropriate to be positioned so close to the small orchard that its dropping fruit can render the pool into a state that cannot be kept and maintained. Even then the apple trees could not be retuned to their lost years and the roles they represented in their past history.

Thank you for very good, clear-eyed advice. It gives me a very good unsentimental way to think about this situation. I forgot to ask when I posted the message if transplanting apple trees is any kind of an option. I don't know for sure that they were part of the original property, they might have been planted at some other time in its history, but the immediately prior owners were here 40-plus years and I don't think they would have planted the trees right next to the pool (of course, they did locate the pool right next to the trees). But I do think the important thing for me to do is to think carefully about it in the broader context you describe. I definitely will talk to our arborist about this (he has recommended removing them in the past and I've declined; he's VERY unsentimental, to say the least, but knowledgeable)but I wanted to have my decision straight in my mind before I talked to him.

Thanks again. I may come back and ask again after I've had time to think about this more. I appreciate your help very much, thanks to you both for the quick reply. (and I have to say a special hello to katrina because I see she's from Oklahoma where I grew up. I'm sure she knows and loves trees well, as my mom and dad always have.)

be done with them ....

the use of any chemicals.. is cost prohibitive ... and an unnecessary exposure ...

once trimmed.. you will be trimming them every year FOREVER ... as the orchard people have to .. and you will still end up with fruit.. though probably more fruit.. and larger.. because pruning is how you motivate production trees ...

bottom line ... i went through the same problem of .. THIS IS THE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE ... and after years of messing with improperly planted foundation plants.. and extremely old fruit trees ... i finally hit the limit ... and out they went ...

I STARTED MY HISTORY OF THE HOUSE .... why are you fixated on saving a dying history of the house .... i suppose you haven't returned to the original kitchen of the house when it was built.. cooking over a hearth .. with wood ... so if you justified renovating the kitchen .. and the bathrooms [unless you still use an outhouse] ... then why be dealing with problems plants.. in problem locations.. and willing to spend lots of money on yearly maintenance on such ....

i would take them down ... and if you really want apples.. or whatever ... mail order some GOOD apple trees .. and plant them in a GOOD place ... and enjoy them .. make them an PLUS for the garden .... instead of dealing with a NEGATIVE ...

GOOD LUCK .. what ever you decide ... ken

I'm with Ken.
Take them out. They're evidently overgrown, untended apples, and from the sound of it, on standard rootstock - and in an undesirable place.
Apples are not endangered species(though some varieties are in danger of being lost), and it sounds like you're not impressed with the fruit quality of those you have.
Have them removed - it's not like you're cutting down the last surviving members of a species; and if you desire fruit trees, plant them in a full-sun site where they can be productive - and choose varieties that you like that will do well where you are - on a semi-dwarfing rootstock so that you can keep them at a manageable size with regular judicious summer pruning.