Last updated: September 26, 2023
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A History of Orchard Care at the Moses Cone Estate
By the 1900s, thousands of apple trees grew on the hillsides around the Moses Cone Estate in the mountains of western North Carolina. These orchards were particularly notable for their high level of management, documentation, and quality during the historic period. They represented the complexity of orchards at the end of the "Golden Age" of fruit growing in the United States. In the 20th century, orchards would become much less abundant, and the number of species and varieties decreased dramatically. Orchard tree spacing became tighter, and tree form changed as dwarfing rootstocks were adopted.
The orchards of the Moses Cone Estate were one of the largest, best documented, last plantings of a 19th century styled orchard system in the United States. Although few trees from that period remain on the property, which is today part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, the remnant orchards are valuable for understanding the history and development of the landscape.
NPS / Blue Ridge Parkway Archives
Landscape Overview
The property is an example of what is considered a Country Place Era estate, a style seen in the 1880s during the post-Civil War period of rapid industrialization until the economic downfall of the late 1920s. A new urban class of wealthy industrialists and professionals built homes in picturesque settings outside of cities for rural retreat and relaxation.
Moses Cone attained his fortune in the textile trade. He began to purchase land north of Blowing Rock, North Carolina in 1893, built a Manor House in 1899, and continued to expand the estate until his death in 1908.
While the landscape had been previously settled and cleared for subsistence agriculture, Cone initiated a period of rapid change as he transformed the estate through new construction and planting. Cone transformed the landscape with carriage roads, bridges and gates, recreational features, a variety of structures, woodlands, lakes, gardens, and orchards. When he died, his widow Bertha Lindau Cone continued to use the estate as a summer residence until her death in 1947. Afterwards, the estate became part of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Bertha Cone had treated the estate as a memorial to her husband, making no major changes to the property.
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Orchard History at the Cone Estate
In 1896, the North Carolina State Board of Agriculture published an assessment of the fruit growing potential of the western North Carolina mountains:
The region is the home of the apple, and is destined to become the greatest apple growing region in America when its capabilities in this respect are fully known to fruit growers. Though the apple thrives here under the most negligent treatment and produces unfailing crops, there have been few attempts to grow the fruit in a systematic manner, and the ignorance among the growers as to the proper manner of culling, packing and shipping has caused the fruit of the mountain country to have a reputation that it does not deserve.
All that is needed here is a population of fruit growers who understand the culture and handling of winter apples…
NPS / Blue Ridge Parkway Archives
The property’s location experienced a suitable climate for growing apples. Flat Top, China, and Saw Mill Place orchards were located in the valleys on the estate below 4000 feet with a southerly orientation. The mountain slopes were the primary challenge, because the steepness made it difficult to access the orchards and led to shallow and stony soil.
Invoices record the purchase of nearly three thousand apple trees in 1899. The new orchards also incorporated some older, existing trees. F. L. Mulford, Moses’ superintendent with responsibility for the orchards, kept a diary and detailed maps, filled with references to the planting in progress.
Many of the apple trees came from commercial nurseries in North Carolina. The estate had its own nursery for storing purchased trees and grafting scions of certain cultivars onto selected rootstock. Some scion material was obtained from older trees growing in the orchards or trees on farms around Blowing Rock. Moses Cone’s annotations in the Rural New Yorker of 1899 also indicate interest in restoring vigor to the old trees on the estate.
By 1900, there were four main apple orchards at the estate:
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The Flat Top Orchard occupied 82 acres on the slopes of the valley below the Manor House.
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China Orchard was located on a scarp face of the Blue Ridge below Sandy Flat.
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Saw Mill Place was a smaller orchard at only 25 acres.
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The Green Park tract was 72 acres, although it was not all used for orchard and did not become part of the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park.
According to Mulford’s inventory and maps of the orchards at that time, Flat Top and China Orchard each had over 12,300 apple trees, Saw Mill Place had 3,782, and Green Park had about 620.
The orchards were established in the early days of commercial apple growing in the United States. Mulford listed seventy-five types of apples in his documentation. The first sixteen of these cultivars, regarded as the commercial varieties, occupied most of the area and were selected because they were marketable and suited to the location.
The remainder were grown in small sections of Flat Top and China Orchards and were described as family orchards. The orchards were primarily dedicated to growing a variety of apples, but the inventory also notes pears, peaches, plums, cherries, nectarines, chestnuts, and hickories. Some of these varieties may have only been cultivated locally, and each was valued for its particular qualities.
NPS / Weems (Blue Ridge Parkway negative #7571)
Of those seventy-five types of apples once grown on the estate, many are no longer commercially available, and some may be considered rare. The combination of commercial and family orchards makes the Cone Estate orchards representative of a turning point in the composition of American orchards.
A Place of Science, Nature, and Business
The Cone Estate, like other Country Place Era landscapes in the southeast, encapsulates many of the ideas of the time associated with design aesthetics, scientific agriculture, environmental conservation, and social and economic theory. For example, the engineering of the carriage road system and the remnant orchards help to convey the historic landscape design, uses, and management. The estate largely reflected Cone’s personal interests and his intellectual and scientific pursuits. Largely self-taught, he subscribed to several farm magazines and read technical reports to gather information he could put into practice at the estate.
While the orchards did prove to be profitable, Moses Cone planted them on the estate out of his interest in scientific farming. Scientific practices, including research on the development, cultivation, and physiological studies of fruit, were beginning to play an important role in the production of commercial produce at the time Moses Cone began planting the orchards at Flat Top. Cone sought an individual with proper training who could be charged with managing the orchards, intending to show what could be realized with scientifically practiced agriculture.
Orchard Care
Cone hired superintendents with strong horticultural backgrounds, and their practical knowledge would have contributed to planting and maintenance across the estate. In late 1899, Cone hired 31-year-old Freeman Mulford of New Jersey to manage his orchards. Mulford’s diary suggests a range of horticultural knowledge.
In addition to Mulford’s documentation and expertise, the extensive orchards required a significant labor force to plant, graft, and maintain the trees. In the early years, establishing the trees occupied a large portion of the estate workers’ time, and as the trees matured, spraying and harvesting became the most time-consuming activities. Much of the orchard area had been pasture, but some forested areas had to be cleared and plowed before trees could be planted. Some entries in Mulford’s diary describe pulling and burning stumps. Work crews were busy planting the fruit trees from 1899 to 1900.
Grafting was also a major operation, beginning in spring of 1900 and continuing for many years. This task required some skill and was more highly paid than other jobs on the estate. In 1905, hourly hands were paid 10 cents per hour for grafting, while other tasks earned a standard rate of 6.5 cents per hour.
NPS / Blue Ridge Parkway Archives
NPS / Blue Ridge Parkway Archives
Training and pruning the trees was necessary to aid their establishment, control fruitfulness, maintain health, and renovate the older trees. It was mostly done between February and May, with some summer pruning to control fruit production. Fertilizing, mowing by scythe, and spraying to limit insects and diseases were other common tasks throughout the year.
Most of the commercial varieties ripened in the fall. During the picking season, all the estate employees plus their family members were needed, and extra hands were hired. It is difficult to say exactly how many people were employed in the orchards at a particular time because the payrolls only specify the type of work when it involved a special hour or daily rate. The number of workers also fluctuated with the seasons. In 1900, the orchards at Flat Top Estate employed more than 15 percent of the population of Blowing Rock.
After Moses Cone’s death, Bertha Cone continued the orchard and farming operations. In 1912, she invited W. N. Hutt, a North Carolina state horticulturist, to the orchards to demonstrate methods for picking and packing to estate employees and local farmers. In 1941, following wage increases across the American labor market tied with the American entry into World War II, Bertha Cone raised the pay for estate workers. As a result, she had to cut the workforce and reduce the scale of some of the estate operations.
Starting in the 1930s, Blue Ridge Parkway landscape architect Stanley Abbott identified a preferred route for the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway that included the Cone Estate. After Bertha Cone’s death in 1947, Flat Top Manor was known as Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, managed as a public park and pleasure ground. The property was transferred to the federal government in 1949, becoming part of the Blue Ridge Parkway. While the Parkway was constructed through the estate in the 1950s, the NPS also agreed to maintain features and characteristics of the park.
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The Orchards Today
The remaining fruit trees at of the Moses Cone Estate may be a small fraction of the historic orchards, yet they are a valuable connection to the historic landscape.
Investigation of the estate’s apple orchard sites, which are associated with an early phase in the development of commercial orchards in the United States, may provide important information about genetic resources, orchard management, and the regional fruit industry in the early 1900s. The Southern Appalachian Mountains were a center of origin for many apple varieties that are now extinct.
Few remnants of the orchards remain today as an outcome of passing time and changing management objectives. Under the early National Park Service ownership, managing the large estate for agricultural production did not compliment the parkway designers’ vision of the road and its adjacent recreation areas, and the estate was not the image they sought to portray of Southern Appalachian Mountain farming and lifeways. In the 1950s, several structures on the property were removed, and many orchards died over time with diminished maintenance, disease, and forest encroachment.
The 1993 Cultural Landscape Report recommended an option to partially restore the Flat Top orchard. It would contribute to the views from the Manor House and along the carriage drive, acknowledging the importance of this feature in the historic landscape.
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The history of this landscape is a reminder that establishing and caring for large orchards requires horticultural experience, labor, time, and commitment to scientific inquiry. While it wouldn’t be realistic to return the landscape to its 1900 appearance and operation, the attention that is given to the preservation of the remaining fruit trees is vital. The remnant orchards yield opportunities in horticulture, research, and education.
Today, park staff are exploring ways to extend the lives of the remaining historic fruit trees in the Flat Top Orchard. Annual pruning efforts are needed to remove deadwood, suckers, and any diseased or damaged branches from the apple trees. Period mowing keeps the orchard floor more open and prevents forest trees from enclosing around them, which allows more light, water, and nutrients to reach the apple trees. Occasionally, NPS arborists gather at the Moses Cone Estate to work on the Flat Top Orchard. Working with partners or volunteers, using DNA testing to identify the variety and parentage of remaining trees, and skills workshops can also help to preserve remnant orchards.
This continuing care strengthens the connection to the landscape's history, including the people who lived and worked here when orchards covered the hillsides.
Plan Your Visit
Moses H. Cone Memorial ParkAround the NPS
Historic Orchards and Fruit Trees
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