Heritage Apples: Preserving our Mountain Traditions
Tom Brown, our modern Johnny Appleseed, shares his search for rare fruit.

Three years ago, I became interested in searching for heritage apples. These are varieties which were known 100 years ago, but now have been "lost." They were apples with wonderful names (Night Dropper, Bug Horn, Bumble Bee Sweetning), apples with unique properties (Vance for jelly and Yellow Buff for drying), and many with long histories of production (Summer Cheese and Kaighn). This effort is a race against time, as the old trees are being cut down and the older people who know the apple names and uses are passing away. Once an apple variety is found, cuttings for grafting are offered to many people who sell heritage apple trees as well as preservation orchards, thus saving them from extinction.

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