Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Set for an auction Oct. 5 at the St. John Community Building, 437-plus acres on the south side of Steptoe Butte will be for sale. The land includes a segment on which rare species of untended apple trees have been located by a Chattaroy, Wash., hobbyist and propagated by members of WSU’s horticulture department.
Aside from apple trees, the parcel includes a stock water well and two communication tower leases.
“It has not been tilled in the past,” said auctioneer Butch Booker of Kincaid Real Estate who is handling the sale. “It’s unlikely to be tilled in the future. If it could be farmed, our forefathers would’ve farmed it.”
The apple trees are thought to have first been planted and cultivated by sons of James Cashup Davis, the man who built the hotel on top of Steptoe Butte.
“It’s my belief that they have never been tended to since the Davises,” said David Benscoter of Chattaroy, originally from Pullman.
At the time the orchards were planted, the land was too steep for farming technology. Today, the situation may or may not be different.
Booker noted that the issue is more about soil types than the grade of the hill.
“Much of it is farmable, I’m positive,” said Benscoter. “If these trees are plowed over, we would have lost our chance to find up to 10 varieties of lost apples.”
He estimates he has tested less than 10 percent of the apples on the land, and has two possible matches of extinct varieties now being tested by the Home Orchard Society of Oregon City, Ore.
For the past two years, a group from WSU’s Dingra Genomics and Biotechnology laboratory have taken in samples to potentially continue these types of trees.
“He (Benscoter) is trying to discover what the catalog would be – what exactly was planted, the entire list, rare and common. Now it looks like he’s gonna run out of time,” said Nathan Tarlyn, a WSU Biotechnology Manager. “When he finds a tree out there, it may very well be the last one of its variety.”
Propagating, in a simple definition, refers to “cutting,” taking a branch of a fruit tree and manipulating it to make roots.
“We help them save them,” Tarlyn said. “Apple trees are all individually unique, like a mutt dog. Grafting a branch from the original tree to a host is the only way to assure that the new tree is genetically exactly the same.”
Benscoter, a retired FBI and U.S. Treasury agent, began looking into the Steptoe Butte apples after researching George Ruedy, who developed the “Palouse” apple, which was grown and sold nationally in the 1880s.
It is now considered extinct.
In Benscoter’s research, he noted 11 apples that were growing there in the early 1900s, now considered extinct. He received permission from the landowners – listed as Steptoe Butte LLC – to work on the land. He hopes a new owner will continue the practice, or allow him time to finish his endeavor.
“I’m sure it would be a number of years,” Benscoter said.
WSU does not do formal study or research on lost apples.
“We do this because we feel it is important to help preserve the agricultural heritage of Whitman County,” Tarlyn said. “The real hard part of the project is doing what Dave is doing.”
Qualifications for the auction include the ability to close on the price in 30 days.
“I definitely think it’s a piece of history,” Booker said of the parcel. “I’m not an apple expert, but it appears to me they are very hardy. I know the deer and moose have loved them. If you have an interest in historic varieties of apples, this would be a property you would want to own.”
At the same auction, a piece of rangeland, 423 acres in western Whitman County south of Lamont, will also be on the block.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
Reader Comments(0)