When Dan Boland speaks, he often interrupts himself mid-sentence with an exuberant “yeah!” before switching to another thought.
Boland, generally, doesn’t like to keep still. One autumn afternoon at Gould Hill Farm, the bearded farmer bounced between apple trees in floppy rubber boots and a weathered baseball cap. He briskly twisted off one apple, took a bite to check its ripeness, then chucked it to the ground before going to the next tree, the next apple variety.
He wouldn’t label himself thus, but Boland, who has worked at the Contoocook farm for two decades, is the perfect purveyor of heirloom apples.
Heirloom apples are varieties that are generally foreign to supermarket shelves but are found on backyard trees in old farmsteads, on trees on the side of country roads or in random seedlings. They are discovered by curious souls, are possible due to apple seeds not reproducing the same exact variety they came from, and still exist in just a few orchards (and farm stores), such as Gould Hill.
Boland happened upon the farm’s dozens of different apples varieties much in the same way they are found – unexpectedly. His background is in biology and seasonal agriculture work, and he got involved at Gould Hill when some friends suggested he take a job there in the 1990s.
“I was like, sure, I’ll come try apple picking,” he said.
Over the years, and as the farm transferred ownership from the Leadbeater to the Bassett family in 2010, Boland learned more about the varieties beyond Cortland, Empire and Macintosh.
“There were the big, old trees,” said Boland, who has been the full-time orchard keeper for the past six years. One tree, the Gramma Baldwin tree behind the old farmhouse, is estimated to be more than 200 years old and may be the oldest apple-bearing tree in the state. Boland also became familiar with the other heirloom varieties grown in a small, tucked-away portion of the orchard – varieties from Europe, Canada and New Hampshire.
“I certainly didn’t take any pomology – it’s all just kind of, winging it and learning it on the fly,” Boland said. “To me, that’s just kind of fun, having an interest in all of this anyway.”
Many of these heirloom apple trees were planted by the Leadbeaters, Boland said, helping increase the farm’s 20 varieties in 1962 to the 80 or so it has today.
Two of those apples – the “Kearsarge” and “Hampshire” – are chance seedlings found around Gould Hill Farm in the ’60s and ’70s. Several more trees at Gould Hill, including a large “Nodhead” from Hollis and some “Granite Beauty” from Weare, hold varieties originating in New Hampshire, too.
As family farms have declined and supermarkets grown, the number of people growing heirloom apples – or even knowing about them – has correspondingly whittled down.
Concord native, Francestown resident and book editor Ben Watson, however, is part of a movement reversing that trend.
As a kid “growing up with a huge garden on the outskirts of Concord,” Watson said in an interview that he’s forever been fascinated with different varieties of fruit and vegetable crops.
“I got more and more into the whole issue of biodiversity,” he said. In the ’90s, he got involved with several organizations responding to a 94 percent decrease in crop variety over the previous 100 years, and he took a particular interest in apples.
Watson said the market has largely called for just the 12 to 15 varieties sold in grocery stores, a fraction of what’s out there.
“Some of the old connoisseur apples that people still grow and love
. . . they’re not suited to large scale, or they have something peculiar about them – not bad, but distinctive,” Watson said. “The modern apple – the apple that’s centralized in food culture – it’s designed to sort of appeal to the widest variety and to offend no one.”
In the midst of his work preserving some of those fringe fruits, Watson said he came across a few Granite Beauty apple trees at Gould Hill Farm, which was up for sale at the time.
“I only found four trees,” he said. “I thought, well, if I don’t do anything . . . if this goes away, this apple variety is gone forever.”
He gained permission to take “scion” wood – a piece of a tree for reproducing – in order to graft the fruit. Now, in addition to being maintained by Boland at Gould Hill, the Granite Beauty is planted on at least one other orchard and grows at Fedco, a national tree, seed and gardening company.
In the meantime, Watson said there’s been more progress in increasing biodiversity as the local food movement grows. Interest in more crop variety and locally produced items – such as cider – has helped the heirloom apple cause.
“Many people are now knowledgeable about local varieties and are seeking out interesting things,” Watson said. He said he wrote his book Cider, Hard and Sweet in response to the trend.
“Regional and heirloom apple varieties . . . cider is one way of connecting with that,” he said. “I see cider being a vehicle toward helping our medium- to small-sized orchards.”
The cider excitement is real in this region. Watson is involved with “Cider Days,” a 22-year-old, three-day festival in Massachusetts dedicated to the apple – sometimes alcoholic, sometimes juice – drink.
Cider is a new interest for Boland at Gould Hill, which has transitioned from a wholesale marketing business into a retail operation that caters to pick-your-own apples, cider doughnuts and, increasingly, cider.
Last week, the Bassett family and their helpers were working on the space beneath the old barn, where slightly more formal cider tastings will be held. On his end, Boland is working with different heirloom varieties to see which produce the best – and most interesting – taste. And money.
“Some of them can be good not just for sweet cider but hard cider,” Boland said. “It’s just trying to get another income stream.”
Apple books line his work bench, and for the past few years, Boland has taken the early spring season to graft some of the better heirloom apple varieties onto older tree stumps. It takes patience, he said, but he’s revitalizing some of the orchard’s older members for this new business opportunity, and for fun.
“We’re just adding,” he said. “I’m just learning.”
And, if nothing else, those heirloom varieties keep Boland’s job interesting. As he darts from tree to tree, taste-testing apples for ripeness all season, he said he “would be remiss” without the flavor variety.
“Oh God, yeah,” Boland said.
(Elodie Reed can be reached at 369-3306, ereed@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @elodie_reed.)