Sunday
Oct102010
Johnny Appleseed
Sunday, October 10, 2010 at 9:52AM
Last year, my Master Gardener Volunteers bestowed upon me a plate. Unbeknownst to me, this wasn’t a plate that one would eat dessert off of, but instead one that you display on a shelf. The plate had a photo of a man, with a tin pot on his head and rags for clothes, smiling at a little girl holding a perfect apple.
That man, John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, has become a legend for planting apple trees throughout the country (see, now you see why I didn’t think it was a bad idea to eat apple crisp off that plate). Some stories have him walking, or even skipping, around sprinkling apples seeds as he went; others have him dressed in nothing but rags.
In actuality, Mr. Chapman, while being very giving, caring, and thrifty (he didn’t wear shoes in winter to save money on leather, he was also quite the businessman. See, he didn’t plant apple seeds but rather orchards in advance of the westerly-moving population. He quickly realized that as the new frontiersmen and women staked their land they would most likely need a fruit tree. And lo and behold, once they reached their destination there was a nursery nearby full of trees ready to transplant.
It is true that he planted all his trees by seed rather than by grafting (he felt that grafting was against his religious of tampering with the natural world), which is the way 99.5% of trees today are grown.
Quick horticultural lesson: apple trees grown from seed do not pass on the genetic traits from their parent plant – it is literally a crapshoot as to what you would get. Similarly, they frequently lack in taste compared to anything you would get – even a store-bought apple in June – today. But Johnny, in his infamous wisdom, didn’t really care about taste, nor did the new landowners. See, folks were interested in one use of these bitter apples: hard cider.
Life on the plains was rough and up until the end of the 19th century, hard cider was their only choice for alcohol. This imbibing continued until Carrie “Hatchet” Nation and her followers vilified the immoral apple. The bad rap continued until the early 1900’s when growers and researchers cloned the sweetest apples by grafting and started the resurgence of the apple as the ultimate healthy food.
So, here in Durango, this Sunday, we will celebrate the apple, and to a certain extent, Johnny Appleseed, with the 3rd Annual Home Grown Apple Days Festival.
That man, John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, has become a legend for planting apple trees throughout the country (see, now you see why I didn’t think it was a bad idea to eat apple crisp off that plate). Some stories have him walking, or even skipping, around sprinkling apples seeds as he went; others have him dressed in nothing but rags.
In actuality, Mr. Chapman, while being very giving, caring, and thrifty (he didn’t wear shoes in winter to save money on leather, he was also quite the businessman. See, he didn’t plant apple seeds but rather orchards in advance of the westerly-moving population. He quickly realized that as the new frontiersmen and women staked their land they would most likely need a fruit tree. And lo and behold, once they reached their destination there was a nursery nearby full of trees ready to transplant.
It is true that he planted all his trees by seed rather than by grafting (he felt that grafting was against his religious of tampering with the natural world), which is the way 99.5% of trees today are grown.
Quick horticultural lesson: apple trees grown from seed do not pass on the genetic traits from their parent plant – it is literally a crapshoot as to what you would get. Similarly, they frequently lack in taste compared to anything you would get – even a store-bought apple in June – today. But Johnny, in his infamous wisdom, didn’t really care about taste, nor did the new landowners. See, folks were interested in one use of these bitter apples: hard cider.
Life on the plains was rough and up until the end of the 19th century, hard cider was their only choice for alcohol. This imbibing continued until Carrie “Hatchet” Nation and her followers vilified the immoral apple. The bad rap continued until the early 1900’s when growers and researchers cloned the sweetest apples by grafting and started the resurgence of the apple as the ultimate healthy food.
So, here in Durango, this Sunday, we will celebrate the apple, and to a certain extent, Johnny Appleseed, with the 3rd Annual Home Grown Apple Days Festival.
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