How Many Apples in a Seed?
I’ve told my readers before how much I enjoy my time in the deer stand, which I spend watching for deer, or course, but also dwelling on life, love, and family, among many other things. Well, I read a book last deer season called, “A Look at Life from a Deer Stand,” by Steve Chapman, in which he talks about some of the things he has thought about while hunting. In the first chapter he talks about how he chose to spend more time with his children because, as he says, “Though you can easily count the seeds in an apple; it’s impossible to count the apples in a seed.”
While the quote was intended to give the reader reason for deeper reflection about family and how our choices have lots of unforeseen results, my initial thought was of something simpler.
I thought about John Chapman.
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Let me tell you a little about John.
He was born on September 26, 1774 in Leominster, Massachusetts to Nathaniel and Elizabeth Chapman. He was their second child. At the time of his son’s birth, Nathaniel was serving in the Continental Army under General George Washington. In 1776, Elizabeth died giving birth to another child. Nathaniel returned home in 1780 to farm and raise his kids. He remarried (to Lucy Cooley) shortly after and the pair added 10 more children to the family.
Nathaniel likely encouraged his sons to go into agriculture like him. As John grew up, he started working as an apprentice to an orchardist in the area. By the time he was 38, he was working independently as an orchardist and nurseryman.
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John Chapman was a devout member of the New Church, also known as the Church of Swedenborg. One of his beliefs was, the more he suffered in life, the more he would be rewarded in heaven. So he chose a life of celibacy and never married. Being a single man with no family, he was free to exercise his wanderlust. He began to travel around the frontier, spreading word of his faith to white settlers and Native Americans alike.
That wasn’t all he spread.
Chapman learned that the government would grant land along the frontier to anyone who would establish an orchard. So he procured some seeds and began to stake claims as he wandered from town to town, mainly in Pennsylvania and Ohio, but other areas as well.
John would go to an area, establish a nursery, and leave, then return after several years to sell off some of the orchards along with the surrounding land. At least one account claims that Chapman planted 100,000 square miles of orchards across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.
That seems a bit of an exaggeration to me. My calculation indicates that 100,000 square miles would be 64 million acres. That’s quite a lot for one man to do all alone, and by hand at that, but who am I to say?
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Chapman seemed an odd sort to many who encountered him…but that’s not necessarily bad.
As I said earlier, John Chapman spread “the word” to both white settlers and Native Americans. He seemed to get along with everybody, no matter their ancestry or skin color. Many Native Americans regarded him as someone who had been touched by the Great Spirit, and even hostile tribes did not try to harm him. A lot of white folks thought he was “touched” too, but I think they meant something a little bit different than the Native Americans did.
One contemporary said John, “devoutly believed that the more he endured in this world the less he would have to suffer and the greater would be his happiness hereafter—he submitted to every privation with cheerfulness and content, believing that in so doing he was securing snug quarters hereafter.”
John’s travels didn’t give him a lot of opportunities to bathe or change clothes so he wore clothing that was ragged and much-patched. He is said to have, at times, worn an old cloth sack with holes cut out for his head and arms. His hair and beard were long and unkempt. He walked barefoot over any surface in all but the coldest weather.
It was reported that, in his kindness, he gave away his shoes to a needy person who had none, but it is also possible that he just wore them out on his travels and got accustomed to doing without.
There are several accounts of Chapman giving things away to needy people, or staying with needy families to help them “get their feet under them.”
John would sometimes stay with friends he made in his journeys, sleeping on their floor after regaling children and adults alike with stories from his experience, as well as the word of God. Everyone loved to hear his stories.
He felt at peace in nature, and with nature as well. John cared deeply for animals and was, in some ways, an early animal rights activist. In his later years, he refused to eat meat. One account says he heard that a horse was to be put down, so he bought the animal, then purchased a few grassy acres nearby where he released it to recover. When the poor horse got better, Chapman gave it to a needy person who promised to treat it humanely.
John’s interpretation of God’s will carried over into his orchard care. He believed that tampering with His creation was wrong, so he disagreed with grafting, a process where a scion cut off a fruit tree of a desirable variety is attached to a root stock from another variety. The scion will produce the same type of fruit as the tree it was taken from.
Thus, every tree he planted had to come from that sack of seeds he carried. He would sometimes be forced to return to Pennsylvania to replenish his supply.
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Due to his peculiarities, as well as his overwhelming friendliness and kindness Chapman soon earned legendary status. Stories of his adventures were shared and passed on by those who knew him. Even after his death in the summer of 1845 outside Fort Wayne, Indiana, people spoke of him lovingly. Before long many forgot his last name and started calling him by an endearing variation of his first name and the fruit he planted wherever he went.
They called him…Johnny Appleseed.
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Not everything told about him is exactly according to fact. Again, that’s not necessarily bad.
In the legend, Johnny Appleseed was ragged and poor, motivated only by an almost insane compulsion to plant apples. Well, he was ragged and he did plant apples wherever he went but, as mentioned earlier, he sometimes profited by selling the land he had laid claim to by planting them. At the time of his death he, “left an estate of over 1,200 acres of valuable nurseries to his sister. He also owned four plots in Allen County, Indiana, including a nursery in Milan Township with 15,000 trees, and two plots in Mount Vernon, Ohio.” (Wikipedia)
So Chapman planted apples in his travels at least in part to lay claim to land which he later sold at a profit, but he didn’t plant any of the varieties of apples you’ve probably ever eaten. Nope, he planted trees that produced a small, tart fruit which was best suited for making apple cider and applejack. When I say they were used to make applejack, I’m not talking about the sugary cereal sold in stores. Nope, according to Wikipedia, “Applejack is a strong apple-flavored alcoholic drink produced from apples.” It was a blended apple brandy which was popular in the American colonial era.
The traditional method of producing the drink, jacking, was the process of freezing fermented cider and then removing the ice, increasing the alcohol content.
Yes, Johnny Appleseed, regardless of his religious beliefs, was somewhat popular for bringing the means of making booze to the frontier.
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Although, even in those days, grafting was a common method utilized by orchardists, as I’ve said, Johnny didn’t graft his trees. That may have actually been a good thing. Orchardists graft trees because fruit trees grown from seeds cannot be consistently depended on to produce fruit exactly like the parent tree. By not grafting, he allowed the trees to produce apples that were frequently different from the parent plant, thus new varieties came into being. The new varieties could then be reproduced by grafting. Although I could find no substantiation, I found claims that some of the popular varieties of apples today came into existence because of trees he planted.
In other words, even Johnny Appleseed could not count the number of (varieties of) apples his seed produced…and that’s a good thing.
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On an interesting side note it is believed that, even 175 years after his death, one of the trees Johnny Appleseed planted is still alive. Richard and Phyllis Algeo, of Nova, Ohio, have a tree on their property that was once part of an orchard which was planted by Johnny Appleseed himself. One nursery, the Hardy Fruit Tree Nursery (www.hardyfruittrees.ca) of Sainte-Julienne, Canada, was able to procure a scion from the tree and now sells trees from that stock. Check out the nursery’s website (www.hardyfruittrees.ca) if you would like to buy a tree only one generation removed from one that was hand-planted by the famous Johnny Appleseed.
But don’t bother trying to count the apples in a seed. I hear it’s pretty much impossible.
Just saying.
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This was rather interesting!! Thanks for sharing!
I’m glad you liked it. My pleasure!
Interesting to find out where the real story of Johnny Appleseed came from! Thanks for sharing!!!!!
Always my pleasure!