Seed-grown apple trees will not produce a predictably delicious fruit. These well-known and loved modern apple varieties are all produced from trees sequestered by fruit farmers and reproduced using vegetative propagation and grafting to ensure perfect genetic consistency. Nowhere were the Gravensteins, Granny Smiths, Jonathans, Red Delicious, Honeycrisps, Pink Ladies, Galas, and Fujis so ubiquitous today. They were not particularly appetizing to look at either, appearing in odd sizes and shapes with inconsistently colored, often rough and russetted skin. Most apples in early America did not taste great. In modern times, the fruit and nursery industry has greatly colored people’s perception of apples and apple trees. Tasty and valuable apple cider, however, could be counted on. Apples fit for eating (sweet and fine-textured and delicious, as we know them today) were not reliably produced in these early orchards. Consequently, cider became a highly valued and heavily traded commodity, and production of cider became foundational to the colonial economy. North American colonists deemed apple cider safer to consume than water, and adopted it as the national drink. These early apple orchards were planted primarily to support cider production. By the early 1600’s, North America’s first recorded apple orchard had been planted in Boston, and by the mid-17th Century, apple orchards were proliferating along American trade routes and on colonial farms. Greeks grew apple trees, as did the Romans after them, and long before the close of the First Century A.D., the beloved apple tree was dispersed to the far reaches of the known world.Ĭenturies later, colonists, bringing seeds from Europe, introduced apple trees to the North American continent. From there, merchants transported apple trees and apple seeds along the legendary overland and maritime Silk Road trade routes into Europe and throughout the Western World. It was perhaps 10,000 years ago that farmers in the mountains of Asia first began growing and “domesticating” apple trees. The amazing and generous apple tree has been one of humanity’s favorite trees - growing alongside us throughout most of recorded history. This tree comes from a wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, that grows in the mountains of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and northwestern China. The “common” apple tree, as we know it today, is a species known as Malus domestica or, synonymously, Malus pumila. Apple trees have been cherished and cultivated for thousands of years by people of many cultures from every corner of the world.
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