They identified 10 previously lost varieties.” “In 2018 we sent them apples from around 200 trees. “The nonprofit status allows us to raise money so we can reimburse the Temperate Orchard Conservancy for their help,” explains Benscoter. With the help of the Whitman County Historical Society, the two established the nonprofit Lost Apple Project. Soon he was driving around each fall searching for old apple trees and trying to identify the variety. He began searching county records and pulled out old plat books, looking for names of people who had entered the contest. “I decided to go look for the lost ones.” “The fair gave a prize for each variety exhibited, and the local paper listed every variety entered and who won,” says Benscoter.
When Benscoter later discovered that 3 or 4 of the “extinct” apples had been exhibited at his local Whitman County Fair between 19, he was hooked. Along with names of other apple detectives, he learned about Creighton Lee Calhoun Jr.’s book “Old Southern Apples.” About half of the apple varieties listed in the book were thought to be extinct. While she and her brother knew what two of the varieties were, others were a mystery.Īn online search yielded no answers, but did acquaint Benscoter with the concept of lost apples, varieties that appeared to have died out. They maintain an orchard of more than 5,000 varieties.”īenscoter got the bug to find lost apples when asked by an older friend to pick apples for her from her orchard. “If we find apples we can’t identify using old books and nursery catalogs, we send the apples on to the Temperate Orchard Conservancy in Oregon. “We go out and search old homesteads for apple trees,” says Benscoter. The hours include searching through old newspaper clippings, seed catalogs, and meeting with descendants of early settlers, all with the goal of finding abandoned orchards. The two have dedicated hundreds of hours and many miles of travel to find lost apple varieties in eastern Washington and Idaho. Long lost trees are bearing fruit for apple detectives David Benscoter and E.J.
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