Conserving and Recording Regional Fruits

Across Britain groups of enthusiasts and passionate individuals are searching out local fruits, puzzling over their identities, documenting them, planting conservation orchards and propagating trees for sale. They are part of a widespread movement to rekindle interest in our almost forgotten regional fruits. One of these organisations, the Marcher Apple Network (MAN), since 1990 has been finding and researching apples originating in the Marches, the borderland between England and Wales centred around Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire. Their work has culminated in the Welsh Marches Pomona, which documents 31 varieties of apples.

Each variety is comprehensively covered with a description of the fruit and illustrated by a water colour painting reproduced as a full page colour plate showing two fruits from different angles plus a sprig of blossom. Line drawing of sections through the fruits and of the leaves are also included. Indeed everything you need to identify the variety and a lasting record for future reference. The meticulous descriptions are by Michael Porter, a founder member of MAN, the beautiful water colours and drawings by the botanic artist Dr Margaret Gill and all of the varieties now grow in MAN’s own conservation orchard.

MAN have documented varieties which have not been recorded in this level of detail before and are comparatively little-known apples outside the region, especially those from Wales, such as Brith Mawr, Marged Nicolas and Pig yr Wydd. Scarcely known also are Byford, a large golden apple which cooked has a pear-like taste, the gloriously colourful Sandlin Duchess and King Coffee whose flavour can sometimes live up to its name. Well known, already fully documented varieties from these counties, such as, Worcester Pearmain, Ashmead’s Kernel and King’s Acre Pippin are not included. Their aim is to record the lesser known apples, but which are still growing in old farm and garden orchards and brought in to local Apple Days for identification; MAN claim to have tracked down the true Ten Commandments, over which there has long been debate. This is a Pomona in the traditional style, a splendid addition to the literature and an elegant scholarly volume that sets high standards for other regional publications, yet reasonably priced considering the large number of colour plates.

Inspired by the same ideals of rescuing old varieties that might otherwise disappear, Livio Dalla Ragione began in the 1960s to collect the fruits of Umbria and Tuscany in central Italy. He saw that local fruits were  in danger of slipping out of memory as well as cultivation in small rural communities as this way of life fell apart after the second world war when Italians left the country to work in cities. He began collecting scion wood and grafting trees to form a collection that now comprises 400 varieties of apples, pears, plums, peaches, cherries, grapes, figs, olives and more growing at his home. Livio was joined in his mission by his daughter Isabella and their ‘arboreal archeology’, as she calls it, continues, although Livio died in 2007. Isabella has carried on maintaining the collections, opening them up to visitors and propagating trees for sale.

Their account of many years of collecting - Arboreal Archeology; a diary of two fruit explorers - includes a directory to some 68 varieties of different fruits with brief descriptions of each one and a colour photograph. But they were equally interested in the role the fruits played. For instance, Uva Moscatello (Muscat Grape) as well as making wine could be added to bread dough to provide ‘a very good focaccio’ and Susina Verdacchia (Green Plum) was wrapped in vine leaves and cooked in hot ashes, while Pera della Battitura (Pear of Threshing) provided thirst quenching juice at harvest time. Arboreal Archeology is a charming book, not a detailed pomona like that of the Marcher Apple Network, but with more emphasis on the link between the fruit and their localities and the way in which they were grown and used. When first published it attracted widespread media attention, making the cover story of the New Yorker and a feature in the Telegraph Magazine in the UK. Livio and Isabella were perceived as lone pioneers and certainly early collectors in the now global activity of conserving regional fruits.

Many organisations are reviving interest in good old varieties and actively surveying, recording and keeping them alive in their localities. ‘North American Fruit Explorers’ (NAFEX), for example was founded in 1967 to promotefruit cultivation and knowledge among amateurs. Belgium’s ‘National Boomgaarden Stichting’ (National Orchard Foundation/NBS) began searching for local varieties in 1970 and ‘Les Croqueurs de Pommes’, formed in 1980, has regional groups all over France. In Britain we have a number of organisations spread across the counties and one-man/woman bands, from Cornwall to Cumbria and over into Scotland, Wales and Ireland, collecting and conserving fruits. The UK’s National Fruit Collection has been gathering in varieties since the 1920s and conserves not only regional fruits from all over Britain but old varieties from across Europe, America and the southern hemisphere. Most of those included in the Marches Pomona are growing the Collection, though not the Welsh ones, and also some of the apples and pears found by Livio and Isabella Dalla Ragioine.

Both books celebrate fruit's remarkable diversity and evoke a time when every country, valley even village had its valued local fruits. Fundamental changes in rural life and fruit’s own success as an international commodity have eroded their useflness, yet they still hold a compelling attraction as evidenced by the success of  ‘Apple Day’  and similar events staged across Europe, and not least in the expanding popularity of Farmers’ Markets.

Joan Morgan

Welsh Marches Pomona by Michael Porter, illustrated by Dr Margaret Gill; published 2010 by Marcher Apple Network; pp 96; illustrated with colour plates and line drawings; £25.00 plus £5.00 postage.

Obtained from Marcher Apple Network c/o M. Ward, 8 Nant-y-Felin, Three Cocks, Brecon, Powys LD3 0SJ.

Marcher Apple web site: http://www.marcherapple.net

Arboreal Archeology; a diary of two fruit explorers by Isabella and Livio Dall Ragione, translated by Cecilia Galiena, published 2008 by ali&no editrice, Perugia; pp 151; many colour photographs.

Books may be obtained from Fedco-Seeds:

http://www.fedcoseeds.com/ogs/OGSorderItem.php?id=9615&OGSname=arboreal%20archeology; price $27.75

Arboreal Archeology web site: http://www.archeologiaarborea.org/inglese.html