# 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:** 5
**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 8, 2023, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/81 "2023-06-08T14:17:11Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > This is sidestepping the main point – what proportion of the apples were fit only for cider-making, and not effectively desirable or usable as simple eating or baking apples. The impression you get from Pollan and articles based on his work is “practically all of them”: > > > [@](#): > > > > The apples that Chapman brought to the frontier were completely distinct from the apples available at any modern grocery store or farmers’ market, and they weren’t primarily used for eating—they were used to make America’s beverage-of-choice at the time, hard apple cider. > > > > “Up until Prohibition, an apple grown in America was far less likely to be eaten than to wind up in a barrel of cider,” writes Michael Pollan in \*[The Botany of Desire](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC1H14/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000FC1H14&linkCode=as2&tag=smithsonianco-20&linkId=PUFMNOXBS4YAHILT). “\*In rural areas cider took the place of not only wine and beer but of coffee and tea, juice, and even water I don’t get the impression that Pollan’s saying few of the apples could have been eaten fresh. I think he’s saying that in practice most of them were turned into cider. Which makes sense: the production of even a small orchard is going to be a whole lot more apples than even a large family is going to eat fresh. I have friends with a home orchard, and most of those apples, including some that are delicious eaten fresh, go into cider (in their case mostly sweet cider, which gets frozen); because despite giving a lot away they can’t eat them all as fresh. – I’m also dubious about the water issue, because except for springs known to have bad water I get the impression that people generally treated the water, at least outside of cities, the way we still did in the 1950’s and '60’s: if it looked clean, it was presumed safe to drink unless there was clear evidence to the contrary. People drank out of rivers, creeks, springs, and dug wells, and didn’t think anything of it. However – I don’t think it’s a brand new issue that many people like to drink something other than plain water. There weren’t shelves full of sodas and other flavored drinks. But there was cider. Easier to make than beer, and often very good flavor. ---
**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 8, 2023, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/82 "2023-06-08T14:53:04Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I don’t get the impression that Pollan’s saying few of the apples could have been eaten fresh. I think he’s saying that in practice most of them were turned into cider. No, he’s definitely claiming that the apples resulting from seed apples weren’t fir for eating, but had to be turned into cider to be useful. See the citation “Bite Me!” above – he gives plenty of quotes from Pollan. Heck, the very reason for his website existing is that his experience is the opposite of Pollan’s prediction. If Pollan had said simply that most apples were turned into cider (and not that the vast majority weren’t good eating), this guy wouldn’t have felt the need to prove that it was fairly easy to grow an edible apple from seed. ---
**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 8, 2023, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/83 "2023-06-08T15:10:31Z")
OK. The portion of the quote given in this thread only said that they weren’t much like modern apples, which is true – modern eating apples have been drastically bred for looks and high sugar (and often, IMO, very little other flavor.) But if I’ve read the entirety of that particular Pollan work it was some time ago. ---
**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 8, 2023, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/84 "2023-06-08T15:10:45Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Is this true of most “heirloom” apples? Absolutely not. The typical heirloom apple in the US produces seeds that grow into trees with fruit totally unlike their parents. There is a huge amount of genetic diversity in the genes that determine fruit. My guess is that antonovka is an outlier because it went through something of a genetic bottleneck, being grown away from other apples and being inbred with itself and its descendants for a while. ---
**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 8, 2023, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/85 "2023-06-08T15:17:21Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I make Heirloom runs up to New Hampshire sometimes to get the weird and wonderful varieties I can’t get in my local supermarket. There are so damned many of them that I have a hard time imagining that they owe their propagation to traveling graftmen. To elaborate, most of those heirloom apples were grown within pollination range of OTHER heirloom apples that are weird and wonderful as compared to each other. And that was the environment in which they were selected. People growing out orchards of random seedlings of highly variable English (mostly) apples. So their seeds have a lot of potential to be different. ---
**Author:** ![CRhode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crhode/32/10500_2.png) [@CRhode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CRhode)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2023, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/86 "2023-06-08T15:18:23Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > He’s definitely claiming that the apples resulting from seed apples weren’t fit for eating. It’s a controversial opinion. You can take the following essay as a pæon to feral trees: - Thoreau, Henry D. “Wild Apples.” _Atlantic Monthly_ Nov. 1862. Henry David Thoreau Online. 19 Apr. 2022 [http://www.thoreau-online.org/wild-apples.html](http://www.thoreau-online.org/wild-apples.html). Beware, though! The author was a Transcendentalist, and he probably wasn’t talking about mere apples. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2023, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/87 "2023-06-08T19:37:30Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > 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). We sang this song instead of saying grace when I was a Girl Scout in the early 60s. We didn’t bang any glasses though. I never knew about Johnny Appleseed’s Swedenborgian connections. My dad went to a two-year Swedenborgian college in Ohio. He wasn’t especially religious. I think he only went there because his aunt ran a boarding house in the town, and he had gone “back East” to help her out. In fact, I never knew of its connection to Swedenborg until I was googling it about five years ago. ---
**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 8, 2023, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/88 "2023-06-08T19:49:13Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > I never knew about Johnny Appleseed’s Swedenborgian connections. My dad went to a two-year Swedenborgian college in Ohio. Swedenborg was one strange dude. He had visions, and believed he could travel to Heaven and to Hell. I think he also believed he could go to other planets. He was an incredibly prolofic writer, and there are Swedenborg Libraries all over the place. There used to be one on Newbury Street in Boston, but it seems to be gone now. It’s possible that the books that were there are now in the library of the Swedenborg Chapel near Harvard in Cambridge. You can read about him here – [Emanuel Swedenborg - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg) The still-extant Swedenborg Foundation has put his writings online, so you don’t have to go to one of his libraries > **[Swedenborg’s Writings & Publications - Swedenborg Foundation](https://swedenborg.com/emanuel-swedenborg/writings/)** > > Swedenborg's Writings & Publications Swedenborg’s theological writings were originally written in Latin and published between 1749 and 1771. Over the years they have been published in many different editions and translated into many different... The unassociated Sacred Texts site has his stuff, too > **[Swedenborg - Sacred-Texts](https://sacred-texts.com/swd/index.htm)** > > Swedenborg   Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was a Swedish philosopher and scientist who, at 56, had a spiritual awakening and wrote numerous books on his theological views and related topics. He advocated a version of Christianity where works... ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2023, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/89 "2023-06-08T20:03:52Z")
There’s also a cool Swedenborgian church in San Francisco,. [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/coD9Hzy.jpeg "Imgur: The magic of the Internet") ](https://imgur.com/coD9Hzy) Bernard Maybeck designed the chairs. ---
**Author:** ![Cecil\_Adams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cecil\_Adams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cecil_Adams)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2023, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/90 "2023-06-08T20:34:49Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > > I don’t get the impression that Pollan’s saying few of the apples could have been eaten fresh. I think he’s saying that in practice most of them were turned into cider. > > No, he’s definitely claiming that the apples resulting from seed apples weren’t fir for eating, but had to be turned into cider to be useful. I have Pollan’s book. Here’s what he says: > Anyone who wants edible apples plants grafted trees, for the fruit of seedling apples is almost always inedible - “sour enough,” Thoreau once wrote, “to set a squirrel’s teeth on edge and make a jay scream.” Thoreau claimed to like the taste of such apples, but most of his countrymen judged them good for little but hard cider - and hard cider was the fate of most apples grown in America up till Prohibition… Johnny Appleseed was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier. Much of this is debatable to say the least. The last sentence strikes me as especially dubious. > [@JKellyMap](#): > > Excellent column. Thanks. My thanks for this and the many other kind words. I owe a shoutout to **Sage\_Rat** for suggesting I look into the Johnny Appleseed story. As may be evident from the fact that I posted the column on a Tuesday, producing these things on even a biweekly basis is proving to be challenging. Given that I have other commitments, will be taking time off for vacation, and sometimes just feel like loafing, let’s just say I’ll post columns from time to time. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2023, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/91 "2023-06-08T21:33:31Z")
> [@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. Hmm. Don’t apple trees “want” critters eating (and later excreting the seeds of) their fruit? Their usefulness in ciders and pies notwithstanding, I thought the evolutionary advantage fruit provided was in how their yumminess increased the distribution and propagation of the “parent” tree’s progeny. ---
**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 8, 2023, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/92 "2023-06-08T22:04:07Z")
> [@Cecil\_Adams](#): > > I have Pollan’s book. Here’s what he says: > > > Anyone who wants edible apples plants grafted trees, for the fruit of seedling apples is almost always inedible Ah. Yes, that isn’t so. Might be true of some specific apples that Thoreau and/or Pollan ate, and is true of some seedling apples, but “almost always inedible” – nope. Happy time off! > [@Stratocaster](#): > > Don’t apple trees “want” critters eating (and later excreting the seeds of) their fruit? Not before the seeds are ripe. Early damage to the fruit by insects can prevent the seed from ripening. The thick skin which is a defense against insects, as has been discussed above in the thread, doesn’t prevent most mammals from eating it; and, further, would break down once the fruit ripens enough to fall to the ground. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2023, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/93 "2023-06-08T22:09:39Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > The thick skin which is a defense against insects, as has been discussed above in the thread, doesn’t prevent most mammals from eating it; and, further, would break down once the fruit ripens enough to fall to the ground. I’m not quite following then. I thought what you said was that the yuckiness was a defense mechanism so that not just humans but other fauna would be repulsed. Does the fruit become more tasty as it ripens? If not, then don’t we have ripened, yucky fruit as a result, with critters ordering takeout in reaction? Wouldn’t a thick (to guard against insects), yummy skin be best? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2023, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/94 "2023-06-08T22:13:40Z")
I have to assume the apples that grew on the tree in our yard when I was a young child did not have thick yucky skins and tasted good. We never found out because every one of them was eaten by birds and squirrels. This was some variety of green apple, yet across the street a dozen apple trees produced nice red sweet and tasty apples that managed to escape the assault by local critters, but not the guerilla tactics of young boys. ---
**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 8, 2023, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/95 "2023-06-08T22:32:22Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Does the fruit become more tasty as it ripens? Yes, of course. Did you ever try to eat unripe fruit? – I take back that question. If you’ve been getting your fruit at a standard grocery store, for one thing you may never have had properly ripened fruit, and for another you’ve probably never had seriously unripe fruit; which in addition to being sour may give you the runs. But the fruit in the grocery store has also been bred for thin skins and probably for early sugar, though very likely not for complex flavor and peak nutrition. A skin that had high sugar early on would be more attractive to insects than one that didn’t, even if it was tough; and I’m not at all sure that high sugar combines well with toughness in the structure of the peel, anyway. It might also encourage fungal growth. And mammals and birds learn, partly from trying things due to hunger and partly from seeing what others eat and partly from aroma (yes, I know most grocery store fruit doesn’t have any, but good fruit fully ripened has quite a bit), that there’s tasty stuff under that skin, even if the skin’s still tough when the fruit’s ripe. What the insects that the tree’s trying to fight off want to do is often not so much to eat the fruit, by the way. Many of them want to punch a hole and lay their eggs in it. When the eggs hatch, then the larvae will eat the fruit from the inside. ---
**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 8, 2023, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/96 "2023-06-08T23:50:00Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > > The thick skin which is a defense against insects, as has been discussed above in the thread, doesn’t prevent most mammals from eating it; and, further, would break down once the fruit ripens enough to fall to the ground. > > I’m not quite following then. I thought what you said was that the yuckiness was a defense mechanism so that not just humans but other fauna would be repulsed. Does the fruit become more tasty as it ripens? If not, then don’t we have ripened, yucky fruit as a result, with critters ordering takeout in reaction? Wouldn’t a thick (to guard against insects), yummy skin be best? No, i don’t think either of us meant to imply that. While i preferred to peel the fruits, they were perfectly good for a human to eat, and were also fine and appealing to other large mammals, like deer, horses, bears, and raccoons, all of which partook. It wasn’t a random seedling, by the way. It was intentionally bred by the Geneva agricultural folks and was released as an experimental “numbered” apple. I think it was intended as a disease-resistant macintosh -type apple. The thick tough skin was likely a mechanical barrier to insects, but i bet the bitterness was caused by chemicals that helped fend off fungus and possibly those same insects. They never did name it and release it more broadly. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2023, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/97 "2023-06-08T23:51:13Z")
> [@Cecil\_Adams](#): > > Given that I have other commitments, will be taking time off for vacation, and sometimes just feel like loafing, let’s just say I’ll post columns from time to time. Of course! Since your initial retirement, each column has been like a bonus gift. Like how all Chicagoans felt when MJ came back after his baseball shenanigans. (Later on, don’t feel obligated to emulate MJ’s less glorious un-retirement with the Wizards!) ---
**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 9, 2023, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/98 "2023-06-09T00:16:43Z")
Fruit trees do want their fruit eaten, but in most cases they don’t want them eaten by insects. Insects won’t do much of a job of spreading the seeds. So if the bitter skin repels insects, but mammals (who do spread the seeds) can learn to remove the skin, or just tough it out, then that’s a win for the tree. As for the “the water wasn’t safe to drink” thing, that’s just in the cities. The reason premodern water often wasn’t safe to drink was because where you have large concentrations of people, you also have large concentrations of human waste, and so human fecal bacteria got into the water supply. Out on the frontier, with one family every few miles, that wouldn’t be an issue. ---
**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 9, 2023, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/99 "2023-06-09T01:13:59Z")
> [@Cecil\_Adams](#): > > I have Pollan’s book. Here’s what he says: > > > Anyone who wants edible apples plants grafted trees, for the fruit of seedling apples is almost always inedible - “sour enough,” Thoreau once wrote, “to set a squirrel’s teeth on edge and make a jay scream.” Thoreau claimed to like the taste of such apples, but most of his countrymen judged them good for little but hard cider - and hard cider was the fate of most apples grown in America up till Prohibition… Johnny Appleseed was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier. > > Much of this is debatable to say the least. The last sentence strikes me as especially dubious. My point exactly. Pollan’s book and his assertion has bothered me ever since I read it (although I don’t have a copy – but I’ve linked to enough quotes from it). And it seems to have been accepted uncritically by an awful lot of people. It’s frequently cited, including in that Smithsonian magazine article. Pollan’;s assertion, in fact, has become practically the “accepted wisdom”. And THAT needs to be challenged. I’m honored to be part of a discussion that drew the Honored Master to make an appearance. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2023, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/100 "2023-06-09T02:10:28Z")
Thanks for all the clarifications. Consider me slightly less dumb than at the start of the day! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098.md?page=6)