Once upon a time in America the only apples you could find,
should you be looking, were gnarly, bitter, wormy crabs. When the first
European settlers came over, they brought with them apple trees, but not being
used to the new climate and soil, they did poorly. When you bring a brand new
plant to an ecosystem you also need to think about how that plant will
reproduce. The early settlers hadn’t considered a lack of honeybees for
pollination when they packed their ships. So they brought honeybees and
different apples and tried again until some survived, and again and again until
more survived. Eventually, America had enough apple orchards to make cider for
everyone to drink. No-one ate apples back then, as most apples were downright
inedible. They made good cider though.
John Chapman, AKA “Johnny Appleseed” would collect apple
pips from slush piles outside cider mills in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in
the autumn, and float them downriver to establish small orchards along the Ohio,
which was then still the frontier. Once the settlers started moving west, and
needed apple trees, his were mature enough to sell to them. Over time, the old
world apple genes mixed with the native apple genes and produced hardier trees.
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| The original Golden Delicious tree in its protective cage. (1931) |
Thus did the Apple become American. Once in a blue moon the
right combination of genes will produce an apple tree with delicious apples you
can eat. This was the case with the original Golden Delicious tree, which grew
in Clay County, West Virginia. Every Golden Delicious apple you have ever eaten
comes from a clone of that tree.
The ABC of Jiffy
Cookery, The Peter Pauper Press, 1961