Research and Documentation of Historic Orchards and Fruit Trees
Why identify historic fruit trees?
Fruit and nut trees grow in many types of landscapes. Old trees are a living connection to the people who shaped agricultural, domestic, commemorative, and designed landscapes. For example, an old fruit tree may be one of the few remaining indications of a former orchard and a sign of how the landscape was used. Identifying an orchard or fruit tree as part of the landscape history can provide useful information both about the tree and the overall landscape.
Identification of historic fruit trees sometimes refers to determining the variety.
Identification is also part of the process of documenting and evaluating the significance of a historic fruit tree, which is a key step in the stabilization and maintenance process.
A few of the questions historic orchards or fruit trees research can help answer:
What was the size and location of a historic orchard?
When was the tree or orchard planted?
Where did a variety or tree originate?
How was it cared for, and who cared for it?
What varieties were available in a particular time and place?
What were the landscape conditions and uses over time?
A historic apple tree has fallen but continues to grow at the Finley Hensley House in Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, 2009. The history, significance, and conditions of apple trees in the landscape were documented in a 2020 Cultural Landscape Report.
NPS
The Cultural Resource Management Process
Like other cultural resources, historic orchards and fruit trees represent a combination of tangible and intangible features, qualities, and values.
Identification
The process of identifying historic orchards and fruit trees involves historical research, field work, and documentation, followed by analysis and evaluation. Primary and secondary sources, such as journals, maps, receipts, and oral history can provide insight into dates, locations, extent, and varieties grown in a particular landscape. This can offer a better understanding of the characteristics of an orchard in a time and place, revealing common patterns as well as any unique examples. Physical qualities, such as pruning form, orchard spacing, tree height, and rootstock, offer further evidence.
Scientific methods confirm or expand this understanding. The age of a tree can be estimated by measuring DBH (Diameter at Breast Height) or using an increment borer to extract a small core sample from the trunk. DNA testing is available to identify the genetic composition of fruit trees, and efforts and attention are being given to standardizing and improving cultivar databases.
The varieties and characteristics of apple trees in the Buckner Orchard at North Cascades National Park represent a period in orchard history and are an important part of the landscape history.
NPS
The products of this initial identification may be a landscape inventory document, like the Cultural Landscape Inventory (CLI), or a Determination of Eligibility (DOE) for National Register of Historic Places.
Identification and documentation occur before preservation maintenance. Knowledge of the history, significance, and existing condition of an orchard or fruit tree helps to plan for short- and long-term maintenance.
Defining the Significance of Orchards and Fruit Trees
Period of Significance
The period of significance is the time period in which an orchard, group of trees, or single fruit tree attained their significance, according to National Register guidelines. It might be the period from which the resource dates, or the period that it accurately represents. For example, some trees in an orchard might have been replaced over time, but they overall still accurately represent the significant period by their type, form, pruning style, and layout.
Integrity
The historic integrity of an orchard, group of fruit trees, or single fruit tree is a measure of physical authenticity. Collectively, this authenticity is measured through location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. These aspect of integrity are conveyed through the existing characteristics and features that were present during the period of significance.
Frequently, orchards or fruit trees in the National Park System are recognized as historically important features for their contribution to the significance and integrity of larger sites or historic districts that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Applying National Register Criteria to Orchards and Fruit Trees
Associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history.
Applications
Category A1: The orchard or fruit trees have played an important role in some period of history of development of an area.
Category A2: The orchard of fruit trees are associated with a historic horticultural innovation, practice, or event.
Category A3: The orchard or fruit trees are assocated with a historic event not related to horticulture.
Criterion B
Associated with the lives of persons significant in our past.
Applications
Category B1: Orchards and fruit trees are associated with a person or persons who played an important role in horticultural history, or in the horticultural development of the area.
Category B2: Orchards and fruit trees are associated with a historically significant person not directly related to horticulture, such as a political figure, writer, or artist.
Criterion C
Embodying the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, method of construction; or that represent the work of a master; or that possess high artistic values; or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction.
Applications
Category C1: Orchards or fruit trees that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, horticultural system, or style, or contain a rare or unusual genotype, such as a variety or strain of a variety, or feature continuity of traditional use and occupancy.
Category C2: Orchards and fruit trees that were part of a historic designed landscape, the orchard was designed for research, or for the demonstration of "good" horticulture.
Criterion D
Having yielded or may be likely to yield information important in history.
Preservation Maintenance
NPS policy calls for the protection and preservation of cultural resources, including orchards and fruit trees. This might include preservation maintenance actions like pruning, mowing, mulching, thinning, and irrigating. Preservation guidelines can also suggest stabilization to prevent further deterioration, like deadwood removal, encroaching vegetation removal, or aerating the orchard floor. A treatment plan like a Cultural Landscape Report or Orchard Management Plan can recommend additional actions for preserving an orchard or fruit tree, such as replanting or propagation.
Germplasm Conservation
Following documentation and treatment, the ongoing protection and preservation of historic orchards and fruit trees is primarily supported through maintenance and monitoring. Germplasm conservation can also be a long-term strategy for a significant tree or group of trees.
Using fruit tree cuttings from the scion, this method preserves the genes of the variety and species. While each variety within the species is unique, all scions of the same variety share the same genotype. Germplasm conservation can be done through a living collection of trees maintained off site, such as at a nursery, or through cryogenic means, involving the USDA National Plant Germplasm Repositories.
Research and Documentation: External Links and Resources
My Fruit Tree
A website from the research lab located at Washington State University's Department of Horticulture, where a team of fruit tree geneticists with decades of experience in fruit tree genetics aim to support the public in identifying apple or sweet cherry trees. DNA fingerprinting for fruit trees is available to the public.
RegisTREE of North America
A project to preserve the genetic diversity and cultural heritage of fruit and orchard heritage through documentation of fruit trees and locations, conservation, and collaboration.
Center for Plant Conservation
The CPC mission is to safeguard rare plants through science-based conservation practices, connecting and empowering plant conservationists, and inspiring all to protect biodiversity for future generations.
Lost Apple Project
The Whitman County Historical Society Lost Apple Project seeks to identify and preserve heritage apple trees and orchards in Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho, and Oregon. Newly grafted apple trees (heritage varieties and re-discovered varieties) are available for sale.
The Boulder Apple Tree Project
The Boulder Apple Tree Project explores the identity and history of apple varieties in the Boulder, Colorado area to inform urban agricultural planning. The project aims to revive the legacy of apple trees in the area through research, genetic testing, grafting, and training.
Maine Heritage Orchard, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners
The Maine Heritage Orchard is a ten acre preservation educational orchard located at the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) in Unity. It contains over 300 varieties of apples and pears traditionally grown in Maine. The website contains an apple database, grower resources, and trainings.
Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project
Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project (MORP) works to preserve Colorado’s fruit- growing heritage and restore an orchard culture and economy to the southwestern region through heritage orchard survey, cultivar preservation, orchard establishment, and education and outreach.
