Lost Apples

Endangered apple varieties — even the sour ones — are being preserved for the good of all apples. Jesus knew the same thing about people: Every person is unique. Every person is valuable.

Jesus speaks about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and even a lost son (Luke 15).

But not a lost apple.

Maybe he should have. Lost apples are hot right now, because they contain important genetic material and can be used to breed other apples. Apples were brought to America by the early colonists and were grown for a variety of important purposes, but many were lost over the years. Although there were once at least 17,000 named varieties grown here, today there are just 5,000.

Yes, that’s right. About 12,000 varieties of apples are in danger of being lost.

Forever.

In search of these nearly extinct apple varieties is The Lost Apple Project. According to Modern Farmer magazine, this nonprofit organization has found 23 lost or nearly extinct apple varieties since 2014. In particular, they seek to identify and preserve apple trees that were planted before 1920 in the Pacific Northwest.

These antique apples have very cool names: Excelsior, Streaked Pippin, Sary Sinap, Nero. These...