JOHNNY APPLESEED COUNTRY FRUITFUL SPOT TO VISIT.

Byline: William A. Davis Boston Globe

As mountains go, Mount Wachusett isn't exactly lofty. But few peaks can rival the view from its 2,006-foot-high summit.

Surprisingly rural still, the north central Massachusetts landscape Wachusett looms over is as distinctively New England in feeling, flavor (local cider, both hard and soft, is delicious) and foliage as any place in Maine, New Hampshire, or Vermont. Yet it's not much more than an hour's drive west from Boston along Route 2.

This serene and scenic corner of the state has most of the attractions that many people drive all day to find in northern New England. You can take in brilliant fall foliage while riding up a ski-area chairlift, pick apples on a working farm, go antiquing or look for crafts, and mingle with the locals at fairs and festivals on village commons.

The view from the top of Mount Wachusett is alone worth a trip out here. On a clear day, the Boston skyline is visible to the east and the Green Mountains and the tips of the presidential range of the White Mountains - including Mount Washington - can be seen to the north. The Berkshire hills, like Wachusett itself now a rainbow of autumn colors, frame the far western horizon.

Directly to the the south lies the rolling Nashoba Valley, dotted with villages clustered around white-steepled churches and tree-shaded commons that are popular venues for fairs, festivals, flea markets, and antique shows this time of year. The valley is also carpeted with green fields and thick-planted orchards where in the fall trees are bending under the weight of ripening apples waiting to be picked. (Most local orchards have a ``pick your own'' policy.)

Core marketing plan

The area recently began promoting itself as ``Johnny Appleseed'' country, taking its name from the frontier folk hero, John Chapman, born in Leominster in 1744, who planted orchards along wagon train routes and gave apple tree cuttings to new settlers.

To get the most out of a trip, it's a good idea to stop at the new Johnny Appleseed Visitors Center on Route 2 (between exits 34 and 35) in Lancaster. The center, open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. year-round is well-stocked with maps and brochures, and the staff can provide information about - and directions to - where to pick apples, go hiking, eat, admire foliage, visit furniture outlets (nearby Gardner is known as ``Chair City'') or find antiques and crafts.

Although exhibits at the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard - which includes collections of American Indian and Shaker artifacts and 19th-century American landscape painting - are closed for the winter already, the museum gift shop and tearoom (which has a superb view of the fruit-rich valley) are open until Dec. 23. Walking trails on the grounds are accessible year-round.

To the top

The Wachusett Reservation has some 17 miles of hiking trails, and there are 20 different routes to the top. None of the routes is very difficult and most take less than an hour, even at a leisurely pace or with younger children. Longer scenic routes such as the 1-1/2-mile Old Indian Trail can take up to 90 minutes.

The Midstate Hiking Trail, which runs from the New Hampshire border to the Rhode Island line, crosses over Mount Wachusett. It also passes by one of the area's historic sites, Redemption Rock, off Route 140 just south of the mountain.

Preserved by the Trustees of Reservations, the rock is an enormous erratic boulder, a landmark in the forest where in 1672 Mary Rowlandson of Lancaster - captured in an Indian raid during King Philip's War - was ransomed or ``redeemed'' from her captors. Her account of a harrowing three months of captivity is a classic of early American literature.

Hiking trail maps are available at the reservation visitor center on Mountain Road, at the base of the mountain. The center also has displays on the flora and fauna and history of the area.

The center's historic section includes some evocative photos of the ``trippers'' and ``rusticators'' of a century ago, when Princeton boasted half a dozen summer hotels and boarding houses. The lone survivor of that hospitable era is Fernside, just down Mountain Road from the center.

A guest farm in the 1850s, for more than a century Fernside was operated by a Boston charity as an affordable summer vacation retreat for low-income working women. Recently restored, the 152-year-old farmhouse is now a bed-and-breakfast inn.

Follow the fruit

Johnny Appleseed country is a place to explore - detouring off main roads to visit an apple orchard, farm stand or scenic view - rather than following a fixed itinerary. A pleasant way to loop back to the Boston area from Mount Wachusett is to meander south through Princeton, Sterling, Lancaster, Bolton, and Harvard, taking either Interstate 495 or Route 110 back to Route 2. These towns all have classic village centers and working farms and orchards, among other attractions.

Bolton has one of the largest orchards and farm stands in the area, Bolton Orchards at the intersection of Route 110 and Route 117, and its best known winemaker: Nashoba Winery, on Wattaquadoc Hill Road. This hilltop winery, which has a great view and is surrounded by a 45-acre orchard, produces prize-winning wines from pears, peaches, plums, blueberries and elderberries and also makes several varieties of cider. There are wine tastings and guided winery tours on weekends.

In the heart of the Nashoba Valley, Sterling is known as ``Appletown.'' There are a number of orchards here - most have signs posted from Route 62 or Route 12. The most famous sight, however, isn't hillsides covered with apple trees but a small concrete statue of a lamb on the village green.

This commemorates the pet of a local girl, Mary Sawyer, that followed her everywhere - including to school one day in 1816. The incident inspired Sterling resident Thomas Roulstone to pen the lines that generations of American children have memorized:

Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow

and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.

ON LOCATION

For information on Boston's apple tree country, contact the Johnny Appleseed Trail Visitors Center, [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Autumn leaves frame a church in a Wachusett Mountain village.

(2) Visitors to the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard can get a look at how the area's pioneers lived. Exhibits include collections of American Indian and Shaker artifacts and 19th-century American landscape painting.

Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism