# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2023, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/101 "2023-06-09T13:45:16Z")
If apples were so inedible up to the mid 1800’s how did they get associated as being the fruit that tempted Adam and Eve by western Christians? Were old world apples any better? ---
**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, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/102 "2023-06-09T14:16:34Z")
Quick answer: 1. As abundantly attested above, even from grown-from-seeds apples, only a percentage were awful 2. People have been grafting more desirable apple shoots onto apple rootstock for a LONG time. Apples were among the preferred fruit in Europe (“Avalon”, the legendary resting place of King Arthur, means “Island of Apples” in Welsh, or whatever). In fact, it’s been argued that the actual intended Adam and Eve fruit isn’t known, and “apple” is just the default fruit European authors assumed, or at least named the fruit . Kinda like the way we have “pine-apple” as a fruit new to Europeans that looked like a pine cone. Or the way we called pomegranates “Chinese apples” when I was a kid.\_ ---
**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 9, 2023, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/103 "2023-06-09T14:31:06Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > In fact, it’s been argued that the actual intended Adam and Eve fruit isn’t known, and “apple” is just the default fruit European authors assumed, or at least named the fruit . Kinda like the way we have “pine-apple” as a fruit new to Europeans that looked like a pine cone. Or the way we called pomegranates “Chinese apples” when I was a kid Reading that made me wonder; and I looked it up. Sure enough, if you go back far enough, the word that became “apple” just meant “fruit”. So naming things “something-apple” would originally have been a way of saying “this kind of fruit”: rather like we’ve got “strawberry” and “raspberry” and “blackberry” and “blueberry” and so on because the word “berry” by itself doesn’t mean any specific kind of berry. > **[apple | Etymology of apple by etymonline](https://www.etymonline.com/word/apple)** > > APPLE: "apple; any kind of fruit; fruit in general," from Proto-Germanic \*ap(a)laz (source also of Old Saxon,… See origin and meaning of apple. Maybe when the word first got used in translations of the Bible it still at least sometimes meant just “fruit”, or maybe “tree fruit”, in general. ---
**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 9, 2023, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/104 "2023-06-09T15:41:13Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > People have been grafting more desirable apple shoots onto apple rootstock for a LONG time. We have grafting instructions from ancient Rome. The Chinese are recorded to have grafted trees as far back as 1000 BCE. > **[Grafting & Espalier | NC Historic Sites](https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/horne-creek-farm/southern-heritage-apple-orchard/learn-more/grafting-espalier)** > > People in China were familiar with grafting techniques as early as 1000 BC. The Romans, who were knowledgeable in the art of grafting, easily understood Early Americans grew seedling apples partly because there weren’t a lot of experts to go around, and probably mostly because land was cheap, so you could afford to grow lots of mediocre trees instead of just good ones. Apples are especially easy to graft, fwiw. The first time i tried it, i had a good success rate. ---
**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, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/105 "2023-06-09T16:26:40Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > [apple | Etymology of apple by etymonline](https://www.etymonline.com/word/apple) > > Maybe when the word first got used in translations of the Bible it still at least sometimes meant just “fruit”, or maybe “tree fruit”, in general. Is the Fruit of Knowledge ever actually referred to, in any translation, as an apple? In fact, what is the first reference to it as an apple? And is the Latin pun between “apple” and “evil” relevant? Come to think of it, that might be another good topic for Cecil. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2023, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/106 "2023-06-09T16:30:06Z")
[Was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden an apple? - The Straight Dope](https://www.straightdope.com/21343798/was-the-forbidden-fruit-in-the-garden-of-eden-an-apple) Indeed! ---
**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 9, 2023, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/107 "2023-06-09T16:30:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Is the Fruit of Knowledge ever actually referred to, in any translation, as an apple? In fact, what is the first reference to it as an apple? And is the Latin pun between “apple” and “evil” relevant? > > Come to think of it, that might be another good topic for Cecil. That’s a great topic for Cecil. I myself have no idea, and would be curious to find out the answers; but probably not curious enough to research them. – whoops, partly ninja’d! will read that column later. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2023, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/108 "2023-06-09T17:33:14Z")
That image of Adam and Eve by Slug Signorino has me ROTFLMAO. Thanks! [![](https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a1fda08/2147483647/strip/true/crop/300x217+0+0/resize/840x608!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FG0KrvX6-FIdxUzc9CBodlv8ug2E%3D%2F0x0%3A300x217%2F300x217%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28150x108%3A151x109%29%3Ano_upscale%28%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F20536435%2F061124.gif) ](https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a1fda08/2147483647/strip/true/crop/300x217+0+0/resize/840x608!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FG0KrvX6-FIdxUzc9CBodlv8ug2E%3D%2F0x0%3A300x217%2F300x217%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28150x108%3A151x109%29%3Ano_upscale%28%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F20536435%2F061124.gif) ---
**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 9, 2023, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/109 "2023-06-09T19:17:37Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > will read that column later. Having done so: that is indeed interesting, and does answer some of the questions. Doesn’t really address the linguistic one, though, about whether some of the issue is that the word that eventually came to mean just “apple” started off meaning just “fruit.” The actual words used for “apple” and “fruit” in the languages of the older works discussed aren’t given. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2023, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/110 "2023-06-09T22:28:41Z")
What specific questions do you have about the word? For Latin, the Vulgate Bible uses _frūctus_, “fruit” or “produce.” It doesn’t use _pōmum_ (more specifically tree fruit, but which gives French _pomme,_ “apple”) or _mālum_ (more specifically “apple”) in Genesis. Latin is only relevant for Catholic \> Western understandings of the text, though; I’m afraid I don’t know Hebrew. The Greek seems to be καρπός [karpós], “fruit, produce”, rather than μῆλον [mē̃lon], “apple; fruit.” ---
**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 10, 2023, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/111 "2023-06-10T02:53:51Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > What specific questions do you have about the word? Thanks for info. I was mostly wondering whether, in English-speaking countries, there had been influence on the translations because the word that eventually became the English for “apple” had originally meant “fruit”. It’s interesting that the Vulgate uses a general term that isn’t a word that either meant or later became “apple”; though I think I already knew that it didn’t use a specific term that only meant “apple”. ---
**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 10, 2023, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/112 "2023-06-10T14:40:00Z")
> [@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. The spirit moves me to amplify a little more on the Thoreau quote. - 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). He wraps up, saying: > The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past. It is a fruit which will probably become extinct in New England. You may still wander through old orchards of native fruit of great extent, which for the most part went to the cider-mill, now all gone to decay. I have heard of an orchard in a distant town, on the side of a hill, where the apples rolled down and lay four feet deep against a wall on the lower side, and this the owner cut down for fear they should be made into cider. Since the temperance reform and the general introduction of grafted fruit, no native apple-trees, such as I see everywhere in deserted pastures, and where the woods have grown up around them, are set out. I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many pleasures which he will not know! Notwithstanding the prevalence of the Baldwin and the Porter, I doubt if so extensive orchards are set out to-day in my town as there were a century ago, when those vast straggling cider-orchards were planted, when men both ate and drank apples, when the pomace-heap was the only nursery, and trees cost nothing but the trouble of setting them out. Men could afford then to stick a tree by every wall-side and let it take its chance. I see nobody planting trees to-day in such out-of-the-way places, along the lonely roads and lanes, and at the bottom of dells in the wood. Now that they have grafted trees, and pay a price for them, they collect them into a plat by their houses, and fence them in,–and the end of it all will be that we shall be compelled to look for our apples in a barrel. … so Prohibition was evidently a thing during the triumphalism leading up to the Civil War and culminated some 40 years later in the 18th Amendment. Sobriety then reigned supreme during the brief epoch of triumphalism after World War I, which came to an abrupt halt with the sudden onset of the Great Depression a little over a decade after that, when the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th. But in fact America’s cider orchards had been long disappearing since their peak extent during pioneer 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 10, 2023, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/113 "2023-06-10T15:13:05Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > 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). It’s interesting what bothers different people. I do have a copy of the book, and i loved it. And i knew perfectly well that lots of seedling apples produce edible fruit when i first read it. I also knew that really good cultivars, ones that might be worth farming for fruit, are vanishingly rare. I sometimes read the reports from apple breeding programs, and they plant thousands of seedlings, and test trial only a handful of those. I guess i just took it as poetic license. A little colorful hyperbole. ---
**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 10, 2023, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/114 "2023-06-10T15:23:20Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > > [@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. Huh. I went to a camp where we “sang grace” before every meal. This was one of the many songs we used as “grace”. I’ve never put a lot of thought into what counts as “saying grace”, but i always thought that’s what we were doing. (The Johnny Appleseed grace was one of my favorites, but my very favorite was _Amazing Grace_. I don’t remember most of the others. But i didn’t remember _Johnny Appleseed_, either, until reminded by this thread. Our words were slightly different.) ---
**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 10, 2023, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/115 "2023-06-10T18:26:05Z")
Our words were a little different, too. The second line was “And so I’ll thank the Lord.” The line in Dr. Paprika’s post doesn’t scan. We only sang the this song – no others. I’m guessing they didn’t want to use any form of grace that was associated with a specific religion, because we were a mixed bunch. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2023, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/116 "2023-06-10T19:43:12Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I guess i just took it as poetic license. A little colorful hyperbole. ⁢ I can understand that. But I can also understand @CalMeacham’s frustration, because it seems that a lot of people have taken that hyperbole literally. I’ll admit it: I believed the idea that Johnny Appleseed’s apples were only good for cider. It’s a very common factoid spread around, in one of those “What school didn’t teach you about \_\_\_” style articles. Kids and young adults love the subversiveness of those, so they spread pretty far. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2023, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/117 "2023-06-10T22:10:09Z")
For what it’s worth, Spanish-speakers also generally call the forbidden fruit an apple when they bother identifying it beyond “fruit”. So it seems to be quite spread in the West. As Cecil mentions in the older column, there may have been a mapping of the Apple of Discord or the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, into the representational part of the telling of the story. > [@BigT](#): > > I’ll admit it: I believed the idea that Johnny Appleseed’s apples were only good for cider. It’s a very common factoid spread around, in one of those “What school didn’t teach you about \_\_\_” style articles. Kids and young adults love the subversiveness of those, so they spread pretty far. And together with the story itself of the man, it shows how quickly and how much the retellings can transform from a relation of happenings to divergent myths. ---
**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 10, 2023, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/118 "2023-06-10T22:53:49Z")
How far back in time can we determine what actual fruit was being called an apple since ‘apple’ seems to have emerged from words naming generic fruit? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2023, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/119 "2023-06-10T23:44:15Z")
I don’t think that assertion is correct. We have ancient words that meant “apple,” specifically; in French, the inherited “fruit” (_pomum_→_pomme_) word replaced the Latin “apple” word (_malum_), which survives in Italian (_mela_); _apple_ itself goes back to Germanic. Modern Greek μήλο (mḗlo pron. _mílo_) continues the Ancient Greek. It’s just that the text of Genesis didn’t specify a fruit, and when you draw the tree, you need to pick _something._ Why not the most generic fruit you can think of? Or something large enough to see which you can make a nice vibrant red? ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2023, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098/120 "2023-06-11T00:49:41Z")
My parents’ farm had an apple tree that grew along a fence row that produced amazing apples. At some point they were lab tested at the University of Tennessee, and it was determined with some certainty what the hybrid was. Maybe we should tell the folks who bought the farm about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-6-6-2023-what-did-johnny-appleseed-actually-do/985098.md?page=7)