Investigation and Stabilization of Apple Trees at Purchase Knob

Located within Great Smoky Mountains National Park in an otherwise forested landscape, majestic and muscular apple trees stand out on a grassy mountain summit, expressing the stories of former lifeways and livelihoods. At Purchase Knob, more than 30 apple trees have persisted for well over a hundred years, despite decades without human care. They are now recognized by the National Park Service as possibly some of the oldest fruit trees in any park unit and are starting to receive needed attention to sustain their longevity and embodied history.

Assessing an apple tree at Purchase Knob in 2022.

NPS

Missie King Oakley making apple butter at Twin Creeks, once a common sight in the Smoky Mountains in the fall, circa 1933.

NPS

Landscape History Overview

In 1874, John Love Ferguson acquired “Purchase Mountain” near the border of Tennessee and North Carolina for the cost of $447 and one horse. Ten years later, the Fergusons built a cabin and a barn and eventually cleared the land for agriculture and livestock. While some of the land had been owned by John’s father and there is evidence that an earlier property owner had built a cabin, this was the first record of agricultural use. The apple trees that the Fergusons cultivated grew well in the cool mountain climate. Arable lowlands for crops are hard to come by in Appalachia, but the Fergusons harnessed the advantages of the high elevation with open meadows, raising cows for butter and growing fruit for the local market. The conditions were conducive to both production and storage. Apples grown at high elevations, with hot summer days and cool nights, were known to have the highest quality and flavor. During an interview in 1966, John’s son Hugh Glenn Ferguson, who lived to be 99 years, recalled picking the apples as a boy and bringing them to market in nearby Waynesville – 40 bushels per wagonload.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established in 1934, primarily to protect its forest and natural resources. Over the years, management leaned toward letting the natural processes of ecological succession take hold as the forest recovered from logging and agriculture, and many farms, mills, orchards, and schools slowly disappeared into the largely forested park that we know today. However, the Purchase Knob property remained in private ownership adjacent to the park boundary until the mid-1990s, when the owners donated the property to the NPS. It has since become one of the NPS National Research Centers (Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center), aimed at supporting research and education about science in our national parks.

Cliff Oakley in an apple barn at Twin Creeks, circa 1930. Barns like this one held apples for storage prior to market day.

NPS

In collaboration with the NPS Olmstead Center for Landscape Preservation, a Landscape Management Plan for Purchase Knob was produced in 2014, incorporating historical documentation, field investigation, and correspondence with former owners and neighbors. The plan defined some preliminary management goals for the landscape and identified apple trees for protection, some dating to the late 1800s, that are part of the agricultural heritage of the property. The trees are a tangible link to the early history of settlement and agriculture in the area, and their persistence reflects their resilience to frosts, storms, pests, and diseases. These are the only known original apple trees on the North Carolina side of the park, other than a handful in the Cataloochee area. The park has also provided an opportunity for visitors to see a representative heirloom orchard at the Mountain Farm Museum located near the Oconoluftee Visitor Center.

Opening the Landscape Once More

Open meadow areas are increasingly rare now in Southern Appalachia, especially at high elevation. At 5000 feet, the historically open character of Purchase Knob has contributed to the unique qualities of its cultural and natural resources. Today, the Purchase Knob fields are home to several species of concern, such as the Golden-Winged Warbler. Managing the landscape to balance various objectives means caring for the fruit trees and farm remnants, along with the fragile ecosystem and its expansive vistas. It means addressing multiple topics like encroachment, access, research, interpretation, and climate change. And this means continuing to ask more questions.

Stabilization and DNA Analysis

To care for something, it helps to know what you have and what makes it important. In addition to the documentation and planning provided in the 2014 Landscape Management Plan, park staff have recently made strides to identify and care for the apple trees at Purchase Knob. Jesse Webster, a Forester at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, has been a project lead for fruit trees in the park. The resource management team that Webster works with in the park worked together to map the resources associated with the unique habitat and the cultural framework. Then, they develop a stepped plan to once again begin to open up the landscape of this unique place.

Vegetation Management Crew members Caleb McMahan and Sarah Spiro clear encroaching vegetation around the base of an apple tree at Purchase Knob.

NPS

Documentation during DNA sampling at Purchase Knob in early 2022.

NPS

To sustain good health, fruit trees need access to at least eight hours of sunlight per day during the growing season. In 2022, Webster and the park’s Vegetation Management Crew removed encroaching vegetation around the fruit trees, clearing away colonizing plants to improve access to water, nutrients, light, and space. The work included an early spring removal of brushy undergrowth and felling overhanging and encroaching trees, then mowing. This was followed by a second removal of encroaching tree stump sprouts in the fall.

Plans for future work include removing dead, diseased, and damaged limbs from the fruit trees, pruning for a balanced structure, and potentially cabling weak limbs to prevent breakage.

Collaborating with Washington State University Department of Horticulture in Pullman, Washington, the park also began DNA testing to determine the varieties of some of these old trees, gathering six samples at Purchase Knob for testing. Each variety has unique characteristics, such ripening period, color of skin and flesh, and flavor. Many 19^th century varieties have become increasingly rare to non-existent in modern commercial fruit markets.

DNA results can reveal the identity of the specific trees and their place in local, regional, and national orchard history. This can help to answer questions such as:

• Is there more than one tree of the same variety?
• Are any of the trees older varieties that are now rare?
• Did any of the varieties originate in the local area?
• Are any of the existing varieties unique to the national parks?
• Are these varieties early apples, or mid- or late-ripening? How would this have contributed to the Ferguson farm?

Once processed, this new information from the lab will ultimately be incorporated into a national database on apple tree genetics housed with Washington State University. Ultimately, the DNA results will help Webster and his NPS colleagues better fulfill the role of cultural resource stewards in managing a landscape for authenticity.

Even as more information is learned about the apple trees, challenges remain. The fruit trees at the Ferguson farm are found in dispersed orchard remnants that are not in grid formation. Webster is concerned that some scattered fruit trees may be overlooked and inadvertently fall out of care. Additionally, it can be hard to differentiate trees that were planted historically from those that grew up from seed, spread by wildlife a long time ago. To complicate matters, some seedling trees might have had a historical purpose other than fruit production, such as rootstock intended for future grafting or cider-making. For now, Webster says, the NPS is taking a conservative approach, treating all mature fruit trees as potentially significant cultural resources.

A Fall Hike in the Mountains

Growing up in East Tennessee, Webster described a personal resonance with the experience of discovering remnants of former farmsteads while hiking in the Appalachian Mountains. Their fruit trees were a tangible reminder that people had gone before and had made a life in this landscape. Webster hopes that his early memories of discovery will be shared by park visitors as they encounter the Purchase Knob fruit trees. He can imagine visitors to the park hiking through the sunny warmth of a late September day, with the smell of fall leaves hanging in the air, to find the welcome surprise of locating these old apple trees, still on the landscape and surviving for years to come. This is the feeling that propels his efforts to lead the preservation of the Purchase Knob fruit trees.

Staff at Great Smoky Mountains National Park documented and stabilized the apple trees at Purchase Knob in early 2022.

NPS

Identifying the Historic Apple Trees

Results of DNA Testing 

Cultivars now known or likely to have been grown at Purchase Knob¹

• Magnum Bonum: This variety of apple, originally grown by John Kinney in North Carolina in 1828, was common in the south until the 1930s. This aligns with the age of the trees at Purchase Knob, planted in the 1870-1880s. It is considered a mid-season variety, with the blooming and harvest seasons occurring between summer and winter apple varieties. This would have made it a marketable option for the Fergusons.

• Ben Davis: Valued for its ease of growth, tree hardiness, and rugged fruit quality. Apples are thick skinned and do not bruise easily, which was an advantage during packing and transportation that made the Ben Davis a popular commercial apple in the 1800s and early 1900s. It is a reliable producer and a later-fruiting tree. While the origin is not definitely known, it has been credited to Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia, initially most common in the south and southwest before spreading to other states.

• Red Limbertwig: A widely-planted variety of the Piedmont region and, to a lesser extent, the mountains of the southeast. It was generally considered a standard winter variety but was not important commercially. Fruit quality and tree success varied, which may have been related to elevation and soil moisture. Trees are more susceptible to fungal diseases than some other varieties.

• Tolman Sweet: Rated a hardy apple with a ripening season from November to March. The variety originated around Dorchester, where the Tolman family settled in 1635. According to George Tolman, editor of the New England Farmer, the family was of Norman origin and the name was originally Le Toller.

• Mystery cultivar: An unknown-identity accession that was recently detected in the Seed Savers Exchange collection in Decorah, Iowa. 

The evidence for the presence of the above cultivars is either direct or indirect. Magnum Bonum was the detected identity of one of the trees. But the others were the determined parents of five other trees on site without detected cultivar identities. There would very likely have been more cultivars grown at the site, such as the unidentified parents of at least some of the DNA-tested trees. 

Most of the existing trees probably originated as seedlings on site, but they produced desirable fruit and were subsequently cared for. Several of the apple trees at the site, including the Magnum Bonum variety, were probably trained into their structure and maintained because they were valued for their fruit quality.

The practice of caring for seedling trees because they yielded palatable fruit is indicative of the remoteness of the orchard, reflecting how subsistence use was balanced with commercial practices at Purchase Knob.

The park intends to sample more of the large, old apple trees remaining at the site.

Additional Resources

• Great Smoky Mountains National Park Historic Resource Study (2016)

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1. This article was updated in March of 2024 to include findings of the apple tree DNA fingerprinting at Purchase Knob, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.