Nurseryman brings back antique fruit tree varieties for new generations to enjoy

CORVALLIS, Mont. — In the early 1900's especially, the Bitter Root Valley grew several hundred varieties of fruit trees, most of them apple.

But many of those antique fruits were lost or forgotten.

For decades, nurseryman Roger Joy has been working to bring them back.

Roger has grafted antique fruit varieties onto thousands of trees at his wholesale Canyonview Nursery in Corvallis.

He learned the art as a young man working at a nursery in Oregon.

When he moved to the Bitterroot more than 40-years ago, he was in high demand.

"When the neighbors found out I knew how to graft," he said, " they approached me about these old varieties they were familiar with when they were little."

Roger found the Bitterroot to be an ideal place to practice his skills.

"I've been shown some of the very old, special varieties that have been here for over a hundred years," he said. "We've been trying to keep them going since then."

"We have the Duchess of Oldenberg," he said and the old original Mac,"

" We have Ashmead Kernel," he said. " That's the same one that Thomas Jefferson had at Monticello."

That's just a few of the fruit trees found at Canyonview.

Many harken back to the Bitter Root's famous apple boom at the turn of the last century.

"In the 1900's, there were several hundred represented," he said, " Many of those varieties are extinct now. They're just gone. They're no longer available."

Years ago, just about everybody had at least a small orchard, called a 'kitchen orchard.'

Today, people continue to rediscover one of those old fruit trees that nobody remembers.

Roger loves the surprise of finding something so precious.

"Some have hung on," he said. " But they offer a lot as far as disease resistance and drought tolerance."

Those that have survived all these years are wonderful treasures," he said. "And I try to keep them going."

To graft, or bond a preserved cutting or scion, you must have a living tree of the same species.

"The definition of a graft," said Roger, " is uniting two living pieces of tissue."

He keeps his carefully labeled scions in a cooler.

In this cooler you will find bunches of scions, old varieties waiting to be transformed into branches that will bear fruit.

Old time orchardists found that many unique and exotic varieties grew well in the valley.

One of them is the Calville Blanc d'Iver.

"This is the apple," said Roger, "that King Louis VIII was making his tarts out of in 1599."

It's this variety that he chose to show NBC Montana the basics of how to make a graft.

He took out his knife and with a few deft cuts began.

"I'm going to make a nice long, smooth tapered cut," he said. "And we'll make a back splice."

He grafts the heritage apple on a semi-dwarf McIntosh.

"It's a semi-dwarf McIntosh with a Snow Apple top," he said of the top graft that he had already completed.

The Snow Apple is a French variety from the 1700's.

"We'll have three antique varieties on one canopy." he said. "The base variety is called Good Mac. That's a cross between McIntosh and Goodland."

Having three or four varieties on one tree is more efficient for tree owners who don't have a lot of space.

"They'll have three varieties on the same canopy," said Roger. "This also will help in pollination. The bee won't have to fly very far to pollinate one from the other."

Roger's right hand work partner is Molly Crawford.

Molly has been working with Roger since she was 15.

"I was so impressed," said Roger when he first hired her as a teen. "She smoked all those high school football players when it came to working out in the field."

"He's a role model and mentor," said Molly of Roger. "He's a wealth of knowledge."

Molly has successfully bud grafted as many as 900 trees, many of them heirloom varieties.

"It's important to keep these vintage fruits alive," she said. "They're classics for a reason."

The trees offer a tangible history of some of the valley's most prominent farms and pioneer farmers.

One of them was Otto Quast.

Years ago, he showed Roger the tree his grandmother planted called the Duchess of Oldenberg.

The tree variety comes from Kazakhstan.

"Otto told me," recalls Roger, "that there was no reason to make an apple pie out of anything but this,"

The nurseryman has grafted plums, pie cherries and pears.

An especially handsome specimen is called the Frost Pear.

"George Frost," said Roger," won a blue ribbon with this fruit every time he put it in the fair."

Roger has taken grafts from the stately McIntosh tree at the Western Agricultural Research Center.

He's taken cuttings from Father Ravalli's ancient apple tree at Saint Mary's Mission in Stevensville.

"I got a Gravenstein from Libby Maclay out of Florence," said Roger. "That's another variety that goes back to the 1700's."

"I see a cool trend that people want those kitchen orchards," said Molly. "You have great pie apples, sweet eating apples and they have history."

At 72, Roger wants to slow down.

He points towards his Kerr crabapple orchard.

"That's supposed to be my retirement program out there," he said, "There are about 200 trees. That's a crabapple that I'm very very proud of."

"We want to get it into the school system if we can," he said of the Kerr, " And it's one of the best ciders you'll ever try.

Roger said his nursery is in good hands.

"Molly's going to take over," he said, "and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure she's successful at it."

"I like working with trees," said Molly. " I like the pace of it. I like hard work, long days and the fact that I can see what I've done. "

"And," she said. " I get to save a lot of trees."

Molly said she has learned and is still learning from Roger, the fruit tree master.