HOLLIS – If even the proudest Granite Stater were asked to name the five states recognized in 2000 for progressive farming, cutting-edge growing technology and exceptional land stewardship ideals, fat chance New Hampshire would be one of them.

Maybe Iowa? Definitely. California and Florida? For sure. And Texas would be up there, too. But rounding out the top five was – surprise – New Hampshire.

It isn’t a stretch, anyone familiar with Brookdale Fruit Farm legends Elwin C. Hardy and Frank Whittemore would agree, to lay most of the credit for that honor at the feet of the local agricultural icons.

Charles “Chip” Hardy, one of Elwin Hardy’s three sons who followed him in the business, remembers his dad and Whittemore going to Washington to receive the award, bestowed by then-President Bill Clinton. The award was a big one, but by no means the only accolade Brookdale has received over its seven generations.

“It’s quite an honor to get that kind of award,” Hardy said. “It shows how really ahead of the curve they were with new ideas and land stewardship.”

This weekend, family, friends and farmers well beyond Hollis are remembering Elwin Hardy, known as “Stub” to many and as a prolific storyteller, jokester and, above all, doting mentor to the generations of Hardys and Whittemores following in his footsteps.

Hardy, who battled Alzheimer’s for more than a year, was 92 when he died Tuesday. He was the widower of Elizabeth A. Hardy, who died in May 2009.

Born on the farm in 1920, Elwin Charles Hardy became the fourth generation to work the land his great-grandfather, Edwin Hardy, first tilled in 1847. He graduated in 1938 from a Hollis High School that consisted of the historic Farley Building, or simply the “White Building,” and went on to study agriculture at the Thompson School of Applied Science at the University of New Hampshire.

Tyler Hardy, an engineer by trade who has begun designing and selling drip-irrigation systems like the ones his forebears developed on the farm, recalled the precious hours learning the trade under his grandfather’s wing.

“I spent many a season alongside him, out there pruning the trees,” Tyler Hardy said of the farm’s extensive apple orchards. “He’s my inspiration, the reason I do what I do.”

Every bit the antithesis of the stereotypical gruff, conversation-challenged, set-in-his-ways New England farmer, Elwin Hardy was more than happy to set down his pruning shears or hop off his tractor to chat it up with everyone from a curious passerby to a fellow grower from another state, his grandson said.

“He loved answering questions,” Tyler Hardy said. “Whenever someone came by, he’d stop and talk. Especially when he had a funny story to tell.”

Farming, as Chip’s brother Bruce Hardy can tell you from experience, gets into your blood early and stays there, regardless of where life takes you.

“I went to college, got married and pursued other things for years,” he said. “But once it’s in your blood, it’s hard not to come back at some point.”

That point for Hardy was about 20 years ago, when he returned to the family compound to help out in the office and with repair work, and during planting season.

“I’m pretty much in part-time mode,” he said. “I’m not as extensively involved as Chip and his family and Rick are, but I like being around the place.”

By the time he and his brothers reached their high school years, Bruce Hardy said, they already had about a decade of farming under their belts.

“Oh, yeah, we were literally 6 years old, out there in the fields picking stuff. … We worked right alongside them,” he said of their parents, uncles and older farmhands. “Everyone worked. Everyone did something.”

Hollis isn’t exactly a large community in 2013, but it was even smaller, and therefore closer, in the boys’ formative years.

“Back then, it was mostly all farming,” Hardy said. “By the time we were in high school, probably half the kids in town worked at the farm during the summers. My father and Frank (Whittemore) knew all the families in town back then.”

Hundreds of people, from down the street and across New England, turned out last summer for Brookdale’s 165th anniversary, a daylong affair that celebrated its rich history, robust growth and diversification, and the seemingly constant innovation that took place around the 365-acre landmark.

Fellow growers numbered high among visitors, some coming from hundreds of miles away to congratulate the Hardys and, of course, hear the newest ideas coming out of little Hollis.

Although Elwin Hardy was too ill to venture out to mingle with visitors, his name came up early and often, especially in the context of his pride and joy: dwarf apple trees.

“That was his real specialty,” Chip Hardy said. “We started with a few dwarf and semi-dwarfs back in the ’60s and ’70s, and it wasn’t long before he realized true dwarf trees not only produced a larger yield, but better quality fruit.”

Fascinated by their characteristics – besides more and better fruit, their size makes them easier to prune, spray and harvest – Elwin Hardy began traveling the world to learn more about dwarf trees, his son said. His first stop was England, where the small, but mighty, trees were created.

“They were a hit in Europe because they don’t have the kind of acreage we do,” Chip Hardy said. “True dwarfs can be planted only 4-6 feet apart, and you can put as many as 800-1,000 per acre.”

It wasn’t long before Hardy and Whittemore turned the farm into a de facto research farm, inviting Hillsborough County agricultural agent George Hamilton, fruit tree specialist Bill Lord and UNH’s Cooperative Extension program to conduct various experiments and trials.

Soon, Hardy was a member, then a director, of the International Dwarf Fruit Trees Association, which boasts members from some 50 nations. Locally, he was active with the New Hampshire Fruit Growers and New Hampshire Farm Bureau, as well as a local vegetable and berry growers group, his son said.

But for Tyler Hardy, the best memories of his grandfather were created, to paraphrase Dorothy Gale, right in his own backyard.

“I was about 10 or so when I started working with him in the orchards,” the younger Hardy said. “I learned so much just by listening to him.

“I think he’d be really proud to see how well his apple production is doing today.”

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-6443 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow Shalhoup on Twitter (@Telegraph_DeanS).