A tract of mainly white pine trees behind these two museum buildings will be cleared to make way for a new wildlife habitat. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
For many, “land management” means mowing the lawn and some occasional pruning. It’s a rude awakening when we realize that trees die, maple saplings left to their own devices could replace grass, and unwanted shrubs and vines could crowd out more desirable species—including human.
Imagine, then, being the land-use manager for a backyard of 210 acres. Such is the position of Dr. Michael Volmar, Chief Curator at Fruitlands Museum. Volmar calls the land the museum’s “fifth collection” and suggests that it is as important to keep the landscape safe and healthy as it is to steward pieces of Shaker furniture, paintings from the early 19th century, Native American artifacts, and transcendentalist Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands farmhouse.
It is this responsibility as steward of the land and educator of the history of its ecology that has led Volmar to his current project, a project that will change the northeast corner of the Fruitlands landscape. Five acres of old forest will be clear-cut to make room for a new habitat. Food-producing trees like oak and hickory will be left and, after the first year, brush-like vegetation will cover the area.
This ecology will be perfect for birds like grouse, turtles and snakes, and small mammals, especially the eastern cottontail rabbit. This last species is rapidly diminishing in Massachusetts because undeveloped land tends to be forest, which is not to rabbits’ liking. The state Department of Agriculture encourages the creation of habitats for these declining animals.
The parcel to be cut is visible from Prospect Hill Road. This piece of land, along with the museum buildings, restaurant, and administrative buildings comprise one quarter of Fruitlands acreage. The forest tract extends along the back and to the north of the white farmhouse with red barn owned by Fruitlands, just north of the main entrance. At the tree line to the north, the land slants down on a diagonal toward the Alcott Farmhouse at the bottom of the hill. Included in this five-acre wedge is what Volmar calls a “white pine plantation” fairly close to the Farmhouse. During the first year of the project at least, the Farmhouse should be visible from Prospect Hill.
Already the land has been rid of invasive shrubs and vines, like Japanese barberry and bittersweet, which out-compete native plants. Those plants have been sprayed and/or cut and treated with a herbicide. As soon as the ground freezes, large machinery will cut the trees and chip the wood. Volmar predicts the work will take only two days.
The work is being funded by a grant from the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP), part of the National Resource Conservation Service, which is in turn a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This is the second WHIP grant that Volmar has received. It is, in part, the success of the first project that has inspired the second.
In 1998 Fruitlands made an important decision: it wanted to be more active about land-use management. Mass Audubon visited Fruitlands and created a baseline for the property, giving ecological parameters, a bird count, an inventory of wildlife, from insects to mammals, and a description of the understory species of plants.
Next was a survey of the forest areas. Because much of the property had been farmland, when farming was ended, trees grew up, all the same age. A healthy forest has diversity of age and species. The danger of too many of one kind of tree is that a pestilence unique to that species could wipe out an entire forest. Too many of one kind also affect the light that reaches the forest floor. White pines are the first to spring up and can create a dense and not very attractive monopoly.
In 2009, Volmar, guided by expert input, wanted to turn a 12-acre tract of “nasty forest” into an upland meadow, a habitat for ground-nesting birds and butterflies. Much of the land in question had been used by the Boy Scouts for Christmas tree cutting back in the 1970s, and it had grown back to same-age conifers and ash trees, infiltrated by multiflora roses and poison ivy. Volmar applied for a WHIP grant for a New Meadow Restoration Project and received an almost immediate positive response. The grant, supplemented by donations from neighbors, funded the project. Today, the 12 acres are a beautiful meadow rimmed in part by tall trees; to the southeast a neighbor’s rolling lawn expands the view. The project has returned the land to what it was like in the 1850s.
There is some money from the grant to continue the annual battle against invasives. Volmar describes how in early spring the meadow is a tawny color, dotted here and there with green. Wherever there is green, there is an invasive plant. Early on, they absorb the light and begin to rob nourishment from the native grasses.
Audubon returned to see the effects of the meadow project on the ecology. At that time they devised a new-forest plan. Volmar received a three-part WHIP grant to carry out those recommendations. Phase one, already completed, is to eradicate invasive species from all the land except that covered in their first grant. Phase two (current) is to create an early successional habitat. The third phase is to re-treat the land for invasives.
With this new project Volmar has again sought out professional advice and is currently working with a forester from Worcester. And, as in the past, he has communicated his plans to the Harvard Conservation Commission which, in turn, has been supportive of Fruitlands land-management projects.
Liz Allard, conservation agent, is delighted at the latest WHIP grant and admits she is jealous. She regrets that municipalities no longer qualify for the grant.
Volmar views Fruitlands as a sort of classroom for best practices in land use and says that land management to create a balance of forest health and wildlife habitat fits in with the museum’s education and interpretive goals. Because of its extensive acreage and varied ecologies, Fruitlands offers examples of different kinds of land management, helping people become better educated about ecology and environmental practices.
