The following was sent to me via the HOS Forum as a direct question; I suggest beginning a "New Topic" to ask and inform everyone. My answer’s below.

"I moved to a farm in NE Washington a few years ago. There was an old abandoned orchard here with about two each of ten apple trees. The fruit is just ripening and i wondered if there was any way to identify the varieties?

ray"

Ray,

I hope you find this… My advice is to store any of the early varieties in a cooler and do your best to pick representative, or ‘average’ looking apples to bring to our Apple ID team at this years All About Fruit Show http://www.homeorchardsociety.org/aafs/ Have “Your unknown apples identified (bring 4-6 samples of each).” Also, note the diameter of the tree trunks and give your best guess at the age of the orchard. Just as today, there were generally a list of ‘popular apples’ at the time of planting and our folks know them.

As for propagation… I’d suggesting collecting scion wood {an online search would likely bring up better information than I describe here} – from any variety you’d care to propagate. Bring it to our Spring Grafting Event where there’s advice and a good selection of apple rootstock. We sell the rootstock and charge around $3 or $4 per 'custom’ graft' (after an entry fee) but it’s still a better deal (cause you know what you’ll get!) than a Nursery. But please collect (and label) a variety of scions (cutting’s) and sizes, the more the better. It’s always best to match scion to rootstock diameters.

As mentioned, I hope you discover this