Actually I looked up the real story of Johnny Appleseed and he was more about making hard cider and selling land. 🙃
In my mom's hometown there are fruit trees literally everywhere. Everyone and their dog has them. The public areas have them. The forests have them. There are fruit all over the ground. Nobody 'steals' or gathers to sell. They make alcohol and share it with anyone that comes within line of sight like pokemon trainers forcing you to battle. Also all of the kids are sick of eating the fruit but if they feel like eating any they don't even have to pick it themselves because all the parents and grandparents will pick wash and even cut up the fruit and serve it on a platter with even the slightest hint of interest. I ate a lot of plums and pears and drank a fuckload of brandy.
What's the town? You can't just promise a bounty of food and not name-drop it.
johnny appleseed would also show up right after native americans were run off from their native orchards and declare those sapling riparian orchards his.
not a coincidence as his business was selling sour apple saplings to new immigrants.
johnny appleseed was a typical christian businessman using the chaos of genocide as a place to put his wallet and the marketing of a pot on his head to get notice.
and the US destroyed the last of the orchards that he claimed as his creation during Prohibition.
because usa.
Apparently apples were primarily used for making booze right from the start of the country, which does indeed make Johnny Appleseed's story feel rather different.
Washington was a big fan of apple jack, which is what you get when apple cider is freeze distilled.
Much of the US is experiencing prime weather for apple jack actually, though it's a little late to get a mash started in time for this weekend's weather.
Probably not primarily booze, but vinegar. Prior to refrigeration and canning, food preservation was massively important. This meant salting, smoking or pickling. Apples that weren't good for eating were important as a source for producing vinegar.
If you know what brewing with apples and not having access to modern equipment, sanitation and yeast is like then I highly doubt they were in short supply of vinegar.
Yeah, that's... that's what they're saying.
It was for cider. They drank a staggering amount of beer, cider and rum on a daily basis in the early 1800's. Cider consumption per capita in the was around 15 gallons/year. They drank even more beer and rum. They were also drinking around 5 gallons/year of distilled spirits.
Most people were what we would classify as functional alcoholics today.
My garden, or what's left of it, is full of insects stealing it.
Ants can steal more than 10x their body weight in one go.
Let me introduce you to my neighbor Mr. Groundhog.
Over here it's small mammals and birds that get most of the yard tree fruit.
Apple seeds have like a one in 10k chance of producing a sweet apple that is nearly as good as what else is on the market, and like one in 100k for it to be better. Every other one comes out to a nearly inedible crab apple.
Always seemed like a cool hobby to me if I somehow became rich. It's like a gamble that is just as much your time, as it is your money.
yeah but if you grow an apple tree with crappy fruit you can saw off branches and graft good branches from a good tree onto it so that it produces good apples, that is how nearly all apple orchards are
In Finland there is this law called jokamiehenoikeudet. Roughly translates into "everymans rights"
Everymans rights allow everyone to enjoy nature in regardless of who owns the land as long as it is done responsibly and without causing harm or disturbance. These rights apply to all people, including visitors.
You are allowed to: Walk, ski, and cycle freely in forests, fields, and other natural areas (as long as you do not damage crops or do it on somebodys yard). Camp temporarily on uncultivated land. Pick wild berries, mushrooms, and flowers (aslong as they are not protected.) Swim, row, and use waterways freely.
But you cant: Cause damage to nature, animals, or property. Disturb residents or invade privacy. Light open fires without the landowner’s permission. Drive motor vehicles off-road without permission. Harm protected species or take branches, bark, or timber from living trees.
So atleast in Finland if the fruit tree is not on anybodys yard or planted for a business use, you can eat the fruit and its not a crime.
It's all of Northern Europe, not Finland especially.
It's called "the right to roam" in English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
All Nordics, Scotland, and even some more central European countries like Switzerland and Czech Republic have variations of it.
And it is not the reason we don't plant fruit trees in cities. The reason we don't plant fruit trees in cities is theyre messy as fuck.
Just think of how often you see buckets of apples labeled "omenoita ilmaseksi!" in the fall. Because people want to clean up their yards of all the rotten apples. Imagine that on every sidewalk.
You can’t take the seed of a tasty apple, plant it and expect the tree to have similarly tasting apples. If you want to duplicate a tree, you need to take a twig and graft it on top of an existing tree.
Source: MinuteEarth on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIajCqcvTg8)
[Edit: Previously, before I remembered that this video exists, I couldn’t remember the correct word for “grafting”. Hence Sidyctism II.’s response.
I love that grafting is real and it works. It always seems like straight scifi to me.
Grafting?
Take a small branch of a tree you like, splice it using a technique, take a small young tree of same type but different variety, splice it, attach branch of variety you like, seal. Nurture it, and the branch uses the donor tree to pull up nutrients and water, and the branch then grows into a whole new tree. It's cloning, but grafting helps it move faster and without as much risk.
I have a bunch of cherry tomatoes plants on the outside fence of my garden. And 6 kiwi plants. They produce so much fruit and i deliberately placed them on the roadside on a road where not a lot of people even walk by. You know, so people can take some fruits if they want. One day my neighbour came over and he was really concerned that people would steal my fruit. I explained to him that it's not really stealing when i even provide little containers to take some on the road or home. The conversation was way longer than i was comfortable with, and i don't think he ever understood the concept.
The reason we don't do it today is because fruits would fall on the ground and people would complain it gets dirty. As stupid as that.
Not just dirty, but the fruit falls on the ground which attracts bugs, rats, etc. that eat the fallen fruit.
I'd be worried about someone taking all the fruit from all the trees then selling it.
Too many trees to harvest them all. People won’t buy it when they can pick their own for free. If people see you taking ALL of the fruit, not just what you can use, they will stop you.
you're underestimating tweakers
I underestimate tweakers not being able to sell fruit that people won’t buy?
I underestimate tweakers not being beat up when other people see them trying to take all the fruit?
No, not being able to steal all of the fruit.
In times like these when federal agents are murdering people in the streets for filming them, it's almost comforting to come into threads like these and see people still having the world's stupidest debate about fruit trees planted on public land.
The seeds Johnny Appleseed used were sour and tasted like shit. They were used for making hard cider. No kids would eat them.
Cider production requires very sweet apples, because you're looking for sugar.
It's not a debate. This is just you being absolutely wrong about something, but being too stupid to do like 5 minutes of research before posting it.
Correct, it was a land grab scam based on the laws of the time.
IIRC, if he planted trees it was then his land because he was using it, so he could then sell it for actual money. This was after the military had killed or chased out the natives who lived on it, of course.
IIRC
You don't recall correctly, and I have no idea where you got that information. Appleseed actually was a successful businessman who bought some land, owning about 1200 acres (~5 km^2^), but by all accounts he was a genuinely good person, and I've never heard what you're saying (and not substantiating) that he did.
Ah but you see, their comment has the message of "capitalism bad", so it doesn't really matter if what they wrote is true.
I'd go even further and say that this is more generic than capitalism/anticapitalism wish fulfillment. It's a desire to speak truth to power but without any of the effort or sincere curiosity to learn what that truth is. To have that truth condensed onto a smaller and smaller spoon until you don't even realize you're being spoonfed at all is the ideal.
Sorry for the YouTube link, if anyone can find it hosted elsewhere let me know I'll update my post.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aD_Tyj-wbC4
Johnny never really profited. By all accounts he was likely neurodivergent and Apple Trees were his special interest. His labor and efforts to educate others was leveraged by others to snatch land up and proof of improvement to the land for homesteading.
The US government was absolutely at fault for the genocide of indigenous peoples. But Johnny was at worse a useful idiot and at best a roving horticulturist who wasn't very good at owning land.
Useful idiot or not, the fact is, according to The Technician at least, he was a successful businessman, so somebody is wrong here.
I'm too old and cynical to believe that it wasn't a scam, ND or not, and that doesn't absolve him from complicity.
Do you have any sources that support your argument?
Probably, but I don't care enough to look them up.
Factoids aren't my special interest any more since I became disabled.
If you aren’t going to find sources to backup your nonsense then please just keep it to yourself.
No.
Alright well no one wants to hear it so idk what you hope to accomplish.
Then why are you caring enough to continue being a nuisance?
Either you have something of substance to say on the matter, or you shut up and listen what people that have can tell you, arrogant old man.
I'm both easily entertained and easily amused.
And you guys are apparently so thin-skinned you can't help being reactive little bunnies.
Let me elaborate, because your ego-driven brain didn't register what i said.
You're not laughing at my expense, you're laughing while shitting your own pants. I pointed that out, and now you're saying that you're feeling amused because of how thin-skinned i am.
The only thing i feel, is distaste and resentment towards your inability to accept the fact that you're wrong at something as minor, your pathetic attempts to heal your wounded ego after, and your supposed tendency to make yourself feel good at the expense of others.
The last one is especially ironic considering that you seem to be far left.
You'll go about spouting things as if they are facts, and when questioned you simply hand-wave them away as if checks comments "being old" and "being disabled" are in any way supporting your point.
You sound exactly like my MAGA in-laws.
I can see you don't come from a very smart family then.
At some point you'll realize that not every little thing you say needs a citation because some kid on the internet gets his panties in a twist.
Calm down, buddy, you're gonna pop a blood vessel.
Ah, ad hominem attacks because you can't counter anyone's points.
I see my maga boomer comment was spot on.
And for some reason they thought you came from your in laws?
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