N.C. apple hunter has 'unearthed more than 1,200 varieties' -- including many that were close to extinction

Brown at the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival in Virginia.
(Tom Brown Courtesy photo via The Washington Post)

There are more than 7,500 listed apple varieties, many of which were considered extinct. But one man with a penchant for fruit investigation has set out to recover some of those missing gems. "Tom Brown is an apple hunter. He doesn't have a use for the Red Delicious, the Honeycrisp or the Pink Lady. He's not impressed by a Fuji or a McIntosh," reports Sydney Page of The Washington Post. "If you want to talk with him about a Harper's Seedling, however, his eyes light up. Brown, 82, searched for the rare apple for 16 years before he found the elusive fruit."

Among apples available for munching, there are trendy apples that orchards regularly ply to the public, and there are multiple antique varieties that some orchards specialize in. But Brown's blushed quarry is a more precious find: missing antique, also known as "historic," apples. He has "been up and down Appalachia searching out rare types of his beloved pome, many of which were nearly extinct," Page writes. "'These apples were going to be soon lost if I didn't get busy and try to save them,'" said Brown, a retired chemical engineer who lives on a 10-acre apple orchard in Clemmons, N.C. . . . Some of his big triumphs include finding the Aunt Sally, the Butter Cup, the Big Boy, the Black Ammit and the Striped Virginia Beauty."

The Aunt Sally apple was sold in N.C.
from 1875 to 1902. (State of N.C. photo)

Page reports, "Over the course of his decades-long expedition, Brown has unearthed more than 1,200 varieties — which he has compiled into a robust list on his website, applesearch.org. . . . Many of them come from the apple bible, the 1905 edition of the Department of Agriculture's Nomenclature of the Apple, — a catalog containing information about the more than 7,500 apple varieties."

Brown's hobby began at a farmer's market and has grown into a bit of an obsession. He has also connected with other "forgotten fruit enthusiasts" and has found cultivars that are not the USDA's apple bible. Page writes, "In his searches, he visits farmers, old orchards and homeowners with apple trees on their properties. He found historic apple trees that were abundant at the start of the 20th century before the modern era of commercial fruit production took hold. . . . His most fruitful destination, he said, has been Wilkes County, N.C., where he has found the 'mother lode' of aged apple varieties, including American Beauty, Big Limb and Golden Twig."

In his own orchard, Brown grows more than 700 varieties of apples, which is both rewarding and tricky since "apple seeds do not always produce the same variety of apple they came from," Page adds. Brown sells his antique apple trees for $20 to encourage others to grow rarer varieties. He told Page, "I'm trying to get as many of the trees as possible growing."

To read how science is helping some historic apples make a comeback, click here.