<a href="/live/profiles/1763-history-of-agriculture-apples" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apples</a> are a common focal point for those interested in agricultural history at College of the Atlantic.Apples are a common focal point for those interested in agricultural history at College of the Atlantic.

UNITY — Abbey Verrier ’13 and Laura Sieger ’16 like to get in the car and search for apple trees — particularly old ones that bear heirloom fruit that they can store and preserve for future generations.

If they find a tree beside the road and they don’t know who owns the land it’s on, they will knock on doors until they find the owner.

A typical property owner’s response is that they are welcome to pick the apples.

“They’ll sort of warn us that maybe we shouldn’t because maybe they’re not edible,” Verrier said.

Most landowners are friendly, they said.

“Oftentimes, they’ll say ‘yes,’ and they’ll tell you where there are six more trees,” Sieger said.

Both Verrier and Sieger are graduates of the College of the Atlantic where they studied human ecology. Both are members of MOFGA and both were interns for Palermo resident John Bunker, a Colby College graduate who created Maine Heritage Orchard, started Fedco Trees in 1984 and is author of the book, “Not Far From the Tree: A Brief History of the Apples and the Orchards of Palermo, Maine.”

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