Real-life J. Appleseed saves neglected trees

Author: Will Mallett

The Middlebury Area Land Trust (MALT) conducted a wild apple tree release workshop in the Murdock Woods on Nov. 10 as part of an ongoing series of workshops designed to benefit both the Trail Around Middlebury (TAM) and the volunteers who participate. The afternoon event was both recreational and educational, beginning with a short hike to what had been an oppressed apple tree on the edge of the TAM. The group proceeding to liberate that tree from the brush, alders and rot to which it had been subjected.

MALT, which has conserved some 2,600 acres in the greater Middlebury area and manages the 16-mile TAM, conducts such workshops and "hike-days" on a regular basis.

"They're very popular with families and with retirees like myself," said a young lady who volunteered on Saturday.

The half-dozen volunteers who participated each had their bit of wisdom to impart, about arboriculture in general as well more specific tree-pruning techniques. But the foremost expert in the field was Bill Suhr, who led the workshop. Nominally, Suhr is the owner of Champlain Orchards in Shoreham, although his relationship with that establishment is unclear.

"Sometimes it seems more like the orchard owns me," he said.

Suhr's status as an expert in the field, however, is quite clear. On the trek to relieve the besieged apple tree, he entertained the corps with snippets of apple-related lore and wisdom. Explaining the process of "grafting," by which a strain of apple is reproduced and maintained, he alluded to the American folkloric hero who may have brought that practice to this continent.

"Johnny Appleseed, who we believe actually existed, was really more of a real-estate tycoon than a horticulturalist," he said.

"What few people realize is that if you plant a seed from a McIntosh apple, there is a 99.9 percent chance you will not get a McIntosh tree," Suhr said, explaining the grafting process by which a McIntosh tree would be reproduced. "Appleseed" may thus have been an entrepreneur with grafting expertise who used his knowledge to practice an early form of environmentally-responsible capitalism.

The focus of the workshop was not ancient folklore and historical speculation, however, but rather direct action in the present. Volunteers had their minds on practical goals.

"We're trying to create a healthier atmosphere for a tree that might bear some fruit, and provide some forage for animal life," said Suhr of the group's mission.

The emphasis of this effort was the physical emancipation of one particular tree, although the principles used to diagnose and treat the tree are more generally applicable to fruit trees in general, and wild apple trees in particular. It was a more or less healthy tree, showing great potential, yet one on which years of neglect had taken their toll. There was some black rot evident in some of the limbs, and encroaching vegetation had begun to smother the tree. The shade of neighboring pines and alders had begun to deprive the poor fellow of the sunlight necessary to its prosperity. "Wet feet," evidenced by the moss on the nearby ground, further put the tree at an unfair disadvantage.

Enter Suhr. Showing great wisdom, skill and alacrity, the seasoned professional directed the removal of inhibiting brush and the clearing of nearby limbs with the goal of increasing the tree's exposure to sunlight, which would invigorate the tree as well as dry the ground around its root system.

"Apple trees like dry feet," he said.

Pruning the tree itself was also a matter of great importance, according to Suhr, and the late fall and early winter is the best time to do it.

"You should prune when a tree is dormant," Suhr said. "Pruning invigorates a tree, but you want to do it when the nutrients have retreated from the extremities so you don't lose them." The resuscitation of a tree should be a cautious, patient process, however.

"It should be done over a period of time," said Suhr. "You can do too much pruning in a year and send a tree into vigorous reactionary growth," which damages the tree's fragile equilibrium.

Thus instructed, the volunteers worked enthusiastically but cautiously on Saturday, breathing new life into an aged specimen of Johnny Appleseed's progeny. The event can be seen as yet another modest yet decisive victory in MALT's regional crusade to conserve and enhance the local landscape.