Gardening: New book details rediscovery of lost apple varieties in Inland Northwest
Over the past 10 years, David Benscoter and the Lost Apple Project have been exploring the history of Eastern Washington through the apple orchards planted by early pioneers.
In the process, he and the Lost Apple Project scoured hidden ravines, creek beds and unfarmable steep slopes to rediscover nearly 30 apple varieties lost to cultivation in North America. He has documented this fascinating story in a new book, “Lost Apples: The Search for Rare and Heritage Apples in the Pacific Northwest.”
Benscoter begins his book with the coming of homesteaders in the mid-1800s and the planting of orchards that provided a self-sufficient homestead with fruit for seasonal eating, drying and winter storage as well as a cash or barter crop for other goods. By the early 1900s, apples from homesteads and orchards in the Palouse and northeast Washington were being shipped by rail to the East Coast.
As the settlers moved in, entrepreneurs followed them and established fruit tree nurseries around the region to supply the homesteaders. Offering more than 1,600 cultivars of apples, roving nursery tree sales agents fanned across the region taking orders from farmers. Orchards were established on hillsides and in ravines where it was too difficult to grow other crops. These challenging environments helped preserve the orchards.
Early 1900s Whitman County newspapers published the results of the county fair awards for the best varieties of apples. Benscoter tracked down the locations of the winners using old plat maps, and the old nursery sales information and began searching through the orchards. Modern satellite imagery efficiently helped save time and energy in identifying these and other sites.
Once an orchard is identified, the Lost Apple Project team collects apple samples for identification. Samples are sent to Washington State University, where they are evaluated using DNA analysis and then compared to the university’s 3,500-count database of old apple varieties.
If a match isn’t established, fruit samples are sent to Temperate Orchard Conservancy experts in Oregon, who use experience, observations and the USDA’s pomological watercolor database to identify the apple. If these experts identify it as a lost variety, the Lost Apple Project goes back to the orchard and harvests scion wood to be grafted onto modern trees for preservation and dissemination to other growers.
Some of the most fascinating orchards sampled by the Lost Apple Project were those around Steptoe Butte that are preserved as part of the Steptoe Butte State Park.
They were planted on the butte’s steep unfarmable slopes in the late 1800s. After 120 years, they were gnarled and scraggly. Benscoter used sales records preserved by the Whitman County Historical Society to narrow the search of potential varieties and was able to identify four lost varieties: Nero (2014), Arkansas Beauty (2016), Dickinson (2016) and McAfee (2017).
The Lost Apple Project has proved so successful that it is expanding searches to other parts of the Northwest. The project can be contacted through their Facebook page: facebook.com/lostappleproject. Benscoter’s book is available through Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane or the publisher, Koekee Books in Sandpoint: keokeebooks.com/products-page/coffee-table/lost-apples.