I read a book a few years ago - something by Michail
Pollan? - about several crops, apples being one of them
(mary jane being another).

I was amazed to find out that the 10 or so seeds in each
apple will grow 10 different apple trees with different
unpredictable flavor in each tree's fruit.  Eating apples
only really occurred in the latter half of the 19th
century.  When someone discovered a flavorful apple - say a
Macintosh - the tree was worth thousands and all Macintosh
bearing trees now are branches from descendants of that one
tree grafted onto miscellaneous rootstock.  There was a
time when rewards were offered for new types of apples, and
it was all just chance.  Amazing.

Also, interesting to find out about Johnny Appleseed.  He
was growing generic apple trees with inedible fruit and
giving them to pioneers heading west so they could make
hard cider.  You couldn't drink the water reliably, so
cider was a way to hydrate safely (until you had too much
and got behind the plow).  So Mr. Appleseed was a pusher,
or at least an enabler, and not the jolly guy that Walt
Disney made him out to be.

Ed MInch


 Steve Jones  wrote:
> Matt;
> 
> That's a pretty useless site. All they have is a bunch of
> pictures of
> apples - no pictures of the wood!
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