The Botany of Desire Page #2

But that's a hard thing to do

if you're a plant.

You know, the apple has

the same existential predicament

Of any plant -- it's stuck

in place, it's rooted down.

So you had the apple

beginning its life

In these kazakh forests

in central asia,

But they would be stuck there

If not for mammals,

that they evolved to appeal to.

If you're a bear in a forest

and you're hungry,

You don't pick the little

blueberry sized apples,

You pick the biggest ones

you can get.

If you find

a particularly sweet one,

You're going to eat

more of that one

Than a sour one.

And in their case,

They eat the whole apple

and excrete the seeds,

And that's how apples

spread their genes.

And sweetness was the ticket

out of that forest.

But to move farther

than bears could take it,

The apple would need

a new ally --

And found one...In us.

Part of

the apple's genius

Has been to insinuate itself

into our culture,

And art and religion, as well.

It's kind of

a botanical zelig --

I mean, it just kind of

shows up everywhere.

Even when it wasn't

really there.

One of

the best known images

Of people and apples together

Comes from the story of

the garden of eden.

Though the bible doesn't

specify what the fruit is,

We have always imagined it

to be apples.

And that's because the northern

renaissance painters,

When they thought of a fruit,

A desirable fruit

that you would put in a garden,

They immediately

thought "apple."

But it wasn't an apple.

Probably was a pomegranate,

Because apples don't do

very well

In the lands where the bible is

thought to have taken place.

One place

where apples did grow

Was ancient china.

They'd been brought there

from central asia

On the trade route

called the silk road.

The apple also traveled west,

Reaching europe

and eventually the new world.

In america,

the apple found a partner,

Someone whose love for it would

become the stuff of legend --

Johnny appleseed.

Behind

johnny appleseed the myth,

There is a real person --

john chapman.

But the myth is so powerful,

So compelling, so fascinating,

That it has completely obscured

the real person who's behind it.

John chapman was born

in 1774 in massachusetts.

In his early 20s,

he headed west.

He traveled through

the ohio river valley,

Which was then

the american frontier,

Planting and selling

apple trees.

He is said to have

likened himself to a bee --

That he had some sense that he,

like a bee,

Was spreading

these plants around.

Johnny appleseed

was --

Not to make a terrible pun --

A pretty "seedy" fellow,

you know?

Travelling around,

often barefoot,

You know,

in a burlap sack sometimes,

Sleeping in barns.

But terribly engaging.

People took him in,

And he planted the orchards,

And he told them how to prune.

But he was, um...

He was a bum.

This is doubly odd,

Because he was actually

fairly well off.

Chapman could easily

have afforded

Much better clothes --

All those apple trees he planted

made him a prosperous man.

He wasn't just

Sprinkling apple seeds

where he went --

He was a nursery man.

He understood that,

Wherever the next wave

of settlers would land,

They would want apple trees.

By law, you were required to

plant some fruit,

Because that was a symbol

you were going to stay put.

So he would find

a piece of land,

He would clear it,

And he would plant apples

from seeds,

And start a nursery a few years

before the settlers got there,

So by the time they showed up,

He had saplings for sale

for a few cents apiece.

It was a very good business.

But when I started learning

about the botany of apples,

Suddenly there was a problem

with his story --

Why would he be planting them

from seed?

The mystery stems

from a curious fact

Of the apple's own biology --

Its taste and even

its appearance

Are rarely passed on

through its seeds.

In every apple you will

find a few little seeds,

Each in their own

little chamber.

Well, every one of those seeds,

if planted,

Will produce a completely

different apple,

Looking very little, if at all,

like its parent.

They tend to be sour, bitter,

All these other

different flavors.

That's because

each apple seed

Carries genes for a wide variety

of traits --

And there's no telling

which of those genes

Will be turned on when

the seed starts to grow.

There is, however,

a very simple way

To perpetuate

the traits of an apple,

An ancient technique

called "grafting."

You take a bud from a tree

That produced fruit

that you liked

And insert it into a young,

developing tree.

The result?

An exact copy --

Or clone -- of the apple

you started with.

Many american settlers grew

their apples exactly that way.

But not johnny appleseed.

He tended to

grow seedlings

And then just let them

grow wild.

He might have done this,

we think,

Because of his

religious beliefs --

He was a swedenborgian.

The 18th-century

- christian theologian,

Emanuel swedenborg,

Preached that the natural world

is imbued with god's spirit.

Swedenborg had

taught that

Everything that was here

on earth,

That you could see, feel,

taste, touch,

Had a counterpart in

the spiritual world beyond.

For chapman,

this seemed to indicate that

He should not tamper with

all of the natural things

That he could see

in the world around him.

And this seems to be

one reason why

He grows apples

from their seeds,

And not from grafting.

Whatever his reasons,

chapman's botanical practices

Gave the apple

a golden opportunity

To adapt

to a new environment.

By going back to seed,

You are going back to

the biodiversity of your genes.

So all of those apple seeds

Produced hundreds of

different kinds of apples

With very different qualities.

And so the apple,

Just like the englishmen

who came over,

Remade itself

as americans.

Most of these

new varieties,

Because they were

grown from seed,

Turned out to be bitter...

But the settlers had a very good

use for them -- cider.

Hard cider.

Now, when we use

the word "cider,"

We picture something very sweet.

But of course,

it only stays sweet

If you have refrigeration.

So all the cider they made

went into barrels and fermented

And became what we call

"hard cider," alcoholic cider.

So johnny appleseed,

who we think of as

The most benign, wholesome

kind of character,

Turns out was

Bringing hard drink

to the frontier.

That's what people drank.

Colonial america

was terrified of water!

You know, they knew about

All the diseases of water

in europe,

And so they didn't drink it.

Cider, however,

because it had been fermented,

Had killed, in the process,

Anything that might

make you ill.

That was the beer of

its time, the wine of its time,

That's what everybody drank --

and I mean everybody.

Everyone from paupers

to presidents consumed cider.

John adams liked to

drink it for breakfast.

But over time,

cider and the apple

Became victims

of their own success.

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