“I couldn’t help but think, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to find an apple that no one has tasted in 50 or 100 years?'” With that thought in mind, Tom Brown embarked on a challenging task: preserving a crucial part of the world’s edible heritage, apples. And he has indeed succeeded, as to date, he has saved over 1,000 varieties believed to be lost from extinction.

Saving the apples

Tom Brown is a retired chemical engineer, and contrary to what many may believe, he was not always interested in apples, let alone in knowing their history or which ones were the rarest. In fact, he hadn’t even heard of the existence of a “traditional” apple until he stumbled upon one at a farmers’ market in the late ’90s.

Brown described tasting some fruit varieties with flavors and colors he had never encountered before. Some of the names were particularly intriguing: White Winter Jon, Arkansas Black, Etter’s Gold, to name a few.

The retired chemist’s interest was fully piqued after talking to the seller of that apple, Maurice Marshall. That’s when he learned that as commercial producers began prioritizing a relatively small variety of fruits in the 20th century, thousands of other apple varieties started disappearing, many of them forever.

The situation was so dire that, at the time Brown spoke to the seller, there were only 11 types of apples, accounting for 90% of sales in the United States. This didn’t sit well with Brown, as he later stated.

Marshall also explained the origin of his own apple collection. Many had been rescued from elderly farms in the Appalachians. This seemed to indicate that there were likely more varieties in the world, persisting on old properties and abandoned orchards.

“That part stuck with me. I couldn’t help but think, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to find an apple that no one has tasted in 50 or 100 years?'”

A daunting task

He wouldn’t ponder that for long, as in search of a retirement pastime, he felt it was the right time to explore what he called a “calling” to seek out lost apple varieties. After meeting with a small community of uncommon orchard producers and delving into thorough research, Brown began tracking down forgotten fruit trees and sharing their produce with the world once again.

So far, Tom Brown has rescued over 1,200 apple varieties from extinction and has around 700 types growing in his own personal orchard. Some of the rescued apples came from lone specimens, the last of their kind.

Brown claims to be satisfied with his work but doesn’t plan to quit anytime soon:

“I like the challenge of finding the old apples. My favorite apple is the one I’m searching for but haven’t found yet.”

Tom’s influence has been such that slowly but surely, these apples have begun to be cultivated in other regions of the area, meaning the fruits are being saved from imminent extinction and could once again grow naturally.