ROOKE: Apple Hunter Story Reminds Us How Badly We Need To Protect Our Heritage

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Tom Brown, a retired chemical engineer from Clemmons, North Carolina, has spent more than 25 years tracking down and preserving heirloom apple varieties that were disappearing from the landscape.

He started this work in 1999 after seeing old apple types at a farmers market in Winston-Salem. Since then, he has located over 1,000 varieties that had been considered lost. He grafts cuttings from original trees found across North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and West Virginia. And he continues this effort well into his 80s to protect our unique national heritage.

Every couple of years, the internet reposts a supposed picture of Brown near a table of different apple varieties. People are rightly amazed by Brown’s dedication and work to preserve this part of our history. Some even go so far as to demand that Brown receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his........

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