# Straight Dope 6/6/2023 - What did Johnny Appleseed actually do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [June 6, 2023, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098 "2023-06-06T13:55:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/21 "2023-06-06T19:26:17Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > First, how did he remember where he planted the seeds that he came back to several years later? (Note that I can never remember where I parked my car ten minutes prior.) Some people have an uncanny sense of direction and could easily do that. I, on the other hand, get lost in my own neighborhood. > [@zimaane](#): > > Second, what was to prevent the arriving setters from just taking the untended seedlings for themselves? Were people really so honest then? I was curious about this too. It wouldn’t even be dishonest. How would they even know that the trees even belonged to someone? I suspect that they were planted remotely just a short-ish hike away so they were unlikely to be found. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/22 "2023-06-06T19:55:39Z")
Thanks for a fascinating column. I had a friend whose father was a preacher, and who convinced me to go to a few “church school” nights where games would be played and hot dogs served. This included being told a few stories and singing a song before eating. _Oh, the Lord is good to me. So I’ll be good to the Lord For giving me the things I need The Sun. And the rain. And the Appleseed. The Lord is good to me. Johnny Appleseed. (Bang glass on table twice)._ The idea of (mustard) seeds has obvious religious symbolism. I learned from your column why religious groups might keep alive this memory, and find the idea of natural deism likely. But part of the reason for the popularity is simply this, that it is a cool sounding name. And if cider was a safer and less problematic alternative to harder liquor, what’s not to like from a religious perspective? Even Ned Flanders likes cider! ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/23 "2023-06-06T20:09:28Z")
I’ll add to the voices declaring this a fascinating entertaining and informative column. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/24 "2023-06-06T20:19:10Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > I was curious about this too. It wouldn’t even be dishonest. How would they even know that the trees even belonged to someone? Perhaps you missed the bit in the column where it said he fenced off the land where he planted his apple seeds? And yeah, probably some settlers did just steal his trees, despite the fences. But with Chapman’s modest lifestyle, it didn’t take many honest folks to keep him in business. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/25 "2023-06-06T20:33:23Z")
Very interesting indeed. Maybe I missed it, but the story I heard was, back then there were no liquor stores or bars everywhere. And the easiest to produce alcohol, for even the rank amateur was hard cider. A process the peoples doing the settling were very familiar with. Yes, beer and wine would come. But if it’s just you and you fancy a drink, apples are the quickest path to alcohol. So, Johnny was really just assuring that whoever followed, or, if he was by this way again, hard cider could be had! I can’t even remember how long ago someone offered me this explanation. I was much younger then, and I immediately thought it made a lot more sense than the story they told us in school. Now even more possibilities to consider. Very interesting indeed! ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/26 "2023-06-06T20:36:51Z")
I’d always understood that grapes were the easiest to turn into alcohol, because they naturally had the right sugar-to-water ratio? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/27 "2023-06-06T20:40:00Z")
Apple juice turns to cider on is own, like grape juice turns to wine. It doesn’t get as strong, as it starts with less sugar. But it takes no skill to make tasty cider. And remember that cider was generally safe to drink, when water might not be. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/28 "2023-06-06T20:44:49Z")
Quick to make cider tastes pretty good. Grapes WILL make alcohol as quickly, but the drinkability of early wine is pretty harsh. It takes weeks to months to reach pleasant I think. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/29 "2023-06-06T20:48:56Z")
If you go to YouTube and enter **Johnny Appleseed: American Weirdo** you will get a video listing from a guy named Max Miller who has a historical cooking show. I LOVE his shows, and this gives some more baskground info on Johnny. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/30 "2023-06-06T20:56:03Z")
Really enjoyed this column and learned new things. Thanks, Cecil! ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2023, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/31 "2023-06-06T21:08:20Z")
Grapes turn to alcohol pretty readily, but most of the world’s wine is made from vitis vinifera varieties, which were not introduced successfully into Mr. Appleseed’s stomping grounds until many years later. Folks on the frontier would have had access to native grapes in the area, though. Grapes like Niagara, Catawba, or Concord. Given the choice between wine made from concords or cider, I’d choose the cider every time. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2023, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/32 "2023-06-07T03:06:30Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > It’s more what the odds are. Seed -grow apples vary a lot. Some are bitter and only fit for cider some become the next hot variety and are then propagated by grafting. > > My husband’s uncle planted 4 seedling apple trees in his back yard. As soon as they fruited, he dug out two as inedible. He kept the other two. This. On a larger scale, that’s how new varieties are developed. Let some plausible parents pollinate, plant a whole lot of seeds, plant out a whole lot of saplings, cull them as defects are found; hope to wind up with one or a few that are better than what’s already on the market. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > My husband’s uncle’s trees produced ugly spotty deformed fruit, mostly due to worms, and a little from apple scab. (Except for one tree with an extremely thick bitter skin, that had a lot of perfect fruit. Go figure.) That thick bitter skin was an effective defense mechanism. All the various other things besides humans that want to bite apples didn’t want to bite that one any more than the people did. > [@Cardigan](#): > > Folks on the frontier would have had access to native grapes in the area, though. Grapes like Niagara, Catawba, or Concord. Johnny Appleseed: 1774 - 1845 (source, Cecil’s OP.) Concord grape: deliberately bred in 1849. [Concord Grape Association: History](http://www.concordgrape.org/bodyhistory.html) . Niagara grape: deliberately bred in 1868. [niagara grape history - Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=niagara+grape+history) … Catawba grape: the only one old enough to overlap, dating to the early 1800’s; and possibly not deliberately bred, but probably a cross between the native grapes and imported varieties. [Pennsylvania Wine School: What is a Catawba? | Pennsylvania Wines](https://pennsylvaniawine.com/2018/01/18/pennsylvania-wine-school-catawba/) . The fully native grapes are generally small, seedy, and sour. The terminology can get confusing, though, because the term “native” grapes can also mean grape varieties bred in the country they’re primarily grown in, though their ancestors may have come from elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2023, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/33 "2023-06-07T03:59:48Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > [@puzzlegal](#): > > > > My husband’s uncle’s trees produced ugly spotty deformed fruit, mostly due to worms, and a little from apple scab. (Except for one tree with an extremely thick bitter skin, that had a lot of perfect fruit. Go figure.) > > That thick bitter skin was an effective defense mechanism. All the various other things besides humans that want to bite apples didn’t want to bite that one any more than the people did. Yeah, couldn’t you see my sarcasm? My guess is the skin was tough enough that it was mechanically hard for insects to pierce it. And the bitterness was probably mildly toxic and protected it as well. I really liked that apple. It probably wasn’t a great commercial apple, because people want to buy a perfect apple and just bite into it. But again, as a backyard tree, it had a lot to recommend it. Uncle David didn’t spray or do anything else to protect the fruit, and 90% of the apples on that tree were perfect. And after scraping the skin off, with either my pocket knife or my teeth, the flesh was delicious. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2023, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/34 "2023-06-07T11:49:29Z")
Good column, Cecil! I’m not much of an apple lover, but if Johnny were to have planted banana trees all over the nation (at least in the South), I’d be a fan-boy. And besides, _Johnny Bananas_ has a cooler ring to it—almost mafioso. And, I’d really be on board if he also started up a bunch of pig farms along his way, because you can never have too much bacon. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2023, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/35 "2023-06-07T12:21:02Z")
Johnny Appleseed has fascinated me for quite a while. It seemed clear to me that he was planting what would become the rootstock for future orchards – later settlers need only pay the grafting man with his collection of grafts of edible apples and you’d have a viable orchard. But then along comes someone like Michael Pollan (and people quoting him) to say that Chapman was really spreading alcoholic cider, because those extremely heterozygositic apples won’t breed true, and the fruit more than likely would be gnarly and sour and good only for crushing in a cider mill and making apple hooch. And we know that Chapman thought it was even to graft, or even prune his trees. Except that the people who bought the orchards Chapman planted probably didn’t share his extremist views, and would be perfectly happy grafting new shoots onto that rootstock. On top of which, there’s evidently one of Chapman’s original apple trees, and you can buy grafts from it (Chapman would be shocked). They’re evidently sweet and good-tasting, and I’ve read about pies being made from them. So the fact is that at least some of Chapman’s “all natural” apples weren’t all unfit for anything but cider. > **[About Johnny Appleseed Authentic™ Apple Trees](https://www.plantmegreen.com/pages/about-johnny-appleseed-authentic-apple-trees)** > > Trees Grafted from the Last Known Surviving Tree Planted by Johnny Appleseed  Everyone knows the legend of Johnny Appleseed, the adventuring frontiersman who traveled early America and left hundreds of apple trees in his wake. Like most tall... ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2023, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/36 "2023-06-07T12:33:34Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > That thick bitter skin was an effective defense mechanism. All the various other things besides humans that want to bite apples didn’t want to bite that one any more than the people did. Except that it’s not really an effective defense mechanism. Apples have big, tasty fruits because they want animals to eat them, because in the process of eating them, we tend to transport the seeds. An apple tree with sweet fruits with tough, bitter skin is wasting all of that valuable sugar for nothing. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2023, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/37 "2023-06-07T12:51:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > An apple tree with sweet fruits with tough, bitter skin is wasting all of that valuable sugar for nothing. Naw, the horses loved them. A person, or a horse or a bear, gets a lot of sweet delicious fruit under that skin. The insect just has a lot of tough skin to cut through. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2023, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/38 "2023-06-07T12:55:57Z")
My understanding is that before Prohibition, everyone drank cider. It’s delicious, and safer than water. And those seedling trees would have been totally useful. Also, of course some of his trees produced tasty raw fruit. “Apples don’t breed true” doesn’t mean every seedling tree produces sour or bitter fruit, it just means that a lot of them do. And the vast majority produce fruit that’s inferior to the fruit of the select few trees that have been selected to be graded from. But those selected trees all started out as seedlings. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2023, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/39 "2023-06-07T13:00:43Z")
None of this contradicts anything I’ve written. Yes, I know that in early days people drank cider (and small beer) in preference to possibly infected water. And even ungrafted trees could produce edible apples. My beef is with the people claiming that Johnny Appleseed’s apples were ONLY good for cider. This seems to have become the popular line these days. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2023, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/40 "2023-06-07T13:05:53Z")
It’s true that more indifferent farmers just grew seedling apples, and ate the fruit of the tastier ones. It’s also true that even back then, there was a lot of demand for the better apples you could guarantee by grafting. But a lot of the crop went to cider, and only a little of it was eaten fresh. So “only good for cider”? No. But “primarily desired for cider”? Probably. Also, it’s a shame there’s not more small beer on the market today. It’s really much nicer than the stuff they make that’s better to get drunk on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098.md?page=3)