Diary Comments:
“Painted prior to 1930.   One of my favorite canvases but never very popular.   Gaunt old windowless N. E. house with collapsed ell, behind, standing in sparse orchard, and before its gable end, a young, thrifty apple tree arising from the debris of the old house,  like a phoenix from its ashes.   Painted in November at the Hawley head of Apple Valley on John Howes property.”

Comments on the back of a sepia print:
On the back of a sepia print, RSW wrote: 
“One of my earlier canvases but I have always felt an important painting.  To some, the subject matter may not seem cheerful but I was caught with the spirit of the young hope apple tree growing out of the fading beauty of the old house, phoenix-like.”

Notes:
Boston Globe, January 3, 1930 about an exhibition at the Boston Art Club by A.J. Philpott:
"And there is no more vivid and luminous landscape in the exhibition than Mr. Woodward's The Old House and the Young Tree. That is a gem."

"This is a gem......a very vivid and luminous landscape."

There is also a chalk drawing of this same scene titled The Young Tree and the Old House.