{"id":79286,"date":"2024-06-12T14:59:29","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T07:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/?p=79286"},"modified":"2024-06-12T14:59:29","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T07:59:29","slug":"tom-brown-apple-hunter-has-personally-tracked-down-more-than-1000-forgotten-varieties-of-our-favorite-fall-fruit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/tom-brown-apple-hunter-has-personally-tracked-down-more-than-1000-forgotten-varieties-of-our-favorite-fall-fruit\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Brown- \u201capple hunter\u201d has personally tracked down more than 1,000 forgotten varieties of our favorite fall fruit."},"content":{"rendered":"

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It might have stopped there, had the vendor, Maurice Marshall, not mentioned apple hunting, a pastime that takes hobbyists through backyards, old orchards and fallow farms in search of forgotten apple trees bearing varieties of apples considered lost or even extinct. \u201cAt one point he mentioned that he\u2019d been trying for years to locate an apple called a Harper\u2019s Seedling, a variety that, historically, had once flourished near where I grew up in Iredell County, North Carolina,\u201d Brown says. \u201cWithout really thinking about it, I found myself offering to help.\u201d\n

As he searched for the elusive Harper\u2019s Seedling, Brown spent his evenings with the 1905 edition of the US Department of Agriculture\u2019s The Nomenclature of the Apple, where he was shocked to learn that there are about 7,000 varieties of apples, each with its own distinguishing characteristics. The extra time studying was worth it: By the time he finally recovered the Harper\u2019s Seedling, Brown had found and identified hundreds of additional forgotten varieties as well.\n

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Brown spent his evenings with the 1905 edition of the US Department of Agriculture\u2019s The Nomenclature of the Apple, where he was shocked to learn that there are about 7,000 varieties of apples, each with its own distinguishing characteristics. The extra time studying was worth it: By the time he finally recovered the Harper\u2019s Seedling, Brown had found and identified hundreds of additional forgotten varieties as well.\n

Once he\u2019d identified exactly what variety of apple he had, Brown\u2019s next step was to keep it from becoming extinct. Though it might seem logical that he could simply collect and plant seeds from each apple he discovered, apples don\u2019t work that way: their seeds can\u2019t be counted on to produce an apple that looks or tastes like its parent. \u201cApples are not what is called \u2018true to seed,\u2019 which means if you plant an apple seed, the tree that grows will produce an entirely new variety of fruit,\u201d he explains. Apples are cross-pollinated \u2014 like humans, they take on the characteristics of both \u201cparents.\u201d Consequently, \u201cGrafting is the only way to preserve each specific variety,\u201d Brown says. And so, he set about taking cuttings from each tree and, once he returned home, grafting those cuttings onto existing apple trees.\n

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In the nearly 25 years since Brown began his quest, he has traveled through North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and West Virginia and has personally recovered more than 1,000 apple varieties. \u201cApples are a huge part of the agricultural history of this area,\u201d he says. \u201cAt one time, it was one of the top apple-producing regions in the country.\u201d (Today, that honor goes to Washington state.)\n

Brown explains that during the 1800s, as volunteer apple trees cropped up on family farms and in orchards and yards, landowners often found themselves with a unique fruit so good it was worth going to the trouble to graft a cutting to ensure a long-term supply. \u201cOlder people I speak with tell me that most families had three or four varieties of apple trees in their yard, and they were all different from what their neighbors grew,\u201d he explains. \u201cThough the families are long gone, those apple trees are still producing.\u201d And while not necessarily commercially available, apples from some of the trees can still be bought at roadside stands.\n

These days, Brown spends his days continuing to seek out and preserve rare heritage varieties of apples. At Heritage Apples, his two-acre orchard in Clemmons, North Carolina, he raises more than 700 varieties of rare and endangered apples. He sells apple trees for about $20 apiece to encourage people to create \u201cmini preservation orchards\u201d in their yards. His plan seems to be working: In the past three years, he\u2019s received about 5,500 inquiries, mostly from individuals interested in buying a tree.\n

\u201cWhen you find a rare tree, you\u2019re getting more than a cutting or an apple,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re getting a piece of history.\u201d\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Tom Brown retired in 1999, he didn\u2019t have plans for a second career or even a time- consuming hobby. But that all changed just a few months later when the former chemical engineer found himself at a farmers market in Winston-Salem, North Carolina staring at a display of heirloom apples. \u201cUntil that moment, I\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[781,670],"tags":[693],"class_list":{"0":"post-79286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gardening","8":"category-news","9":"tag-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Tom-Brown-at-the-Brushy-Mountain-Festival-North-Wilkesboro-NC-Wilkes-County-credit-Tom-Brown.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}