Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Short Stuff: Johnny Appleseed

Transcript

Short Stuff: Johnny Appleseed · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: there's Jerry. Let's get to it. I thought this is
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: an interesting pick from you, and I salute you because, um, well,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm I'm literally saluting you. I see my hand.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty good at it too. You really are, like
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: how high and tight that is you? And you did
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: like the little snap where you're hand kind of reverberates,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: you know. Oh I hate a lazy salute, so uh yeah,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I salute you because this is um people think of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: they hear the words Johnny Appleseed, they hear that name
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and immediately they think of the Disney version, or they
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: think of folk tale. But Johnny Appleseed was a real
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: dude named John Chapman who planted apple trees. Yeah. It's
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: one of those amazing, awesome myths that turns out to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: be virtually accurate. Yeah, so it's not a myth at all. No,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: not really. I mean, there's only like some stuff about
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: about that legend that are that is somewhat mythical, but
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: really most of it's pretty accurate. It's not like he
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: had like a giant ox or anything that followed him
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: around that was blue. He was basically I think the
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: thing right, the thing that um that that people usually
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: get wrong in the retelling with with Johnny Appleseed is
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: that he was basically like the world's first flower child,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and that he was just basically like kind of trapesing
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: along the frontier at the turn of the from the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: eighteenth of the nineteenth century, planting trees just because he
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: loved nature. That is not correct. Necessarily, this guy did
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: love nature. He's a businessman, he was. He was. He
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: did this four like out of a business a sense
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of business, for sure, but he was not like any
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: kind of um, hard nosed, hard hitting, like I'll come
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to your house and break your legs kind of businessman.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: He would never double cross anybody or do something in
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: business that would make someone else suffer. He apparently was
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: well known for never ever reminding someone that they owed
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: a debt. He believed that the he believed the good
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Lord would tell that person you need to go Paige,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Johnny apples He because you owe him some money, and
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: it really didn't matter anyway if you bothered him, because
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: they knew that they owed the debt. And who was
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: he to go bug somebody and make him feel down
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: you never knew someone was going through. So he was
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: that kind of business man. And yet even with that mentality,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: even with that attitude, he had everything he needed in
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: life and more which was not necessarily substantial, because he
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: used to sleep on a bed of leaves and little
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: twig huts that he made of his own construction on
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the frontier. Well, let's talk about apples for a second. Um. Apples,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: as far as we know, started out in what we
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: would call Kazakhstan today. They gained a lot of popularity
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: in Rome because they grafted apples and a lot of
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: fruit trees. If you want them to grow and fruit
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: like you are accustomed to, or like you want them to,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: you don't plan from seed. You you graph them, which
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: is when you take a stem with a bud on
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: it and through magic, not technique as a gardener, but
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: through magic you uh graph that onto another tree instead
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of planting from seed, uh and you would get a
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: more reliable outcome, especially in the case of apples, because
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: apparently growing apples from seed. If you have a wonderful, red,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: delicious apple and you go spit a seed out into
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the ground, your it might grow into something and maybe
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously an apple tree, but it probably will
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: not be a red delicious apple that you can eat. No,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: there were called spitters. Apples grown from seed were called
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: spitters at least scoring. According to this um the Smithsonian
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: article that we found um because they are way, way
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: sour like. Apples did not used to be like what
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: we think of apples today. They were very, very sour,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: at least the one's grown from seeds. There were sour um,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and Henry David Thoraux said, did I mention they were sour?
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Henry David thoros said that they would put a squirrels
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: teeth on edge. It's pretty sour. That's super sour. And
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I love the way you put it so folksy. And
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: now he was a proto hippie, I'll tell you that.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: But this these were the trees that Johnny apple Seed
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: was planning. He was planning them from seed um, not
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: from grafting. And apparently one reason why he planted them
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: from from seed and not grafting was because he was
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a member of the sweden Borgian church Work Work Work,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: which UM which kind of held that plants could feel uh,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and therefore grafting was inherently cruel because it could conceivably
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: create suffering in the plants. So he grew from seed. Alright,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: let's take a break. Oh wow, and we'll we'll come
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: back and we'll talk about why John Chapman wanted to
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: plant all these apples to begin with from seed right
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: after this. All right, So Mr Chapman was from Ohio,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and uh, it's it's funny. We don't know a lot
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: about his early years. He was born in actually born
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts, but kind of lived his life in Ohio,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I think, uh for the most part, and which was
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the west at the time, which is funny. And said,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: all right, here's the deal. The Ohio company associate said,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: all right, you want to go out west and settle.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: If you want to form a permanent homestead beyond Ohio,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: then you can get it. You can get a hundred acres.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: But what you have to do, though, is you have
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: to plant fifty apple trees and twenty peach trees in
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: three years. Um. I guess it's an incentive to make
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the land rich with with plants. Well, also to show
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: that you planned to be there in a few years
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: when these things started bearing fruit. It was it was
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: a way to show that you meant to settle there permanently.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I guess, well, yeah, but it was it's not like
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: build a house. I mean it it had an agricultural benefit.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I see what you mean. Yeah, I guess that would
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: have been part of it then too. Yeah. So he says,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: all right, he sees a business opportunity, and he's like,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: if I can start heading west from Pennsylvania and I
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: can get just ahead of these settlers and plant these things,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: like claim this land and plant these trees and these orchards,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: then I can turn around and sell them at a
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: much higher value. Yeah, because he improved the land. He
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: was the first squatter kind of in a way, I guess.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: But the other thing that I saw he did too
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: was he would establish nurseries in the area as well.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: So if if you didn't buy attractive land that he
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: had already developed, you could also still just come and
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: buy his trees from him. Um. And he did this
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: for decades, going up and down the frontier, because the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: frontier kept kept growing further and further west. And at first,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: I mean when he when he first embarked out, and
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I mean we're talking Ohio. Ohio was the frontier there
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: was there was no United States beyond that. I don't
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: think Ohio was even a state quite yet. So he's
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: walking up and down these unsettled lands, um like growing
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: these orchids, planning apple trees, and then also creating nurseries.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: But at the same time too, he was also serving
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: as a liaison between these incoming settlers and the Native
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Americans who know now suddenly had neighbors, whether they wanted
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: them or not. UM And he apparently uh spent a
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: lot of time learning the languages of the different tribes
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: that he encountered, and they grew to trust him, and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: so he became an advocate for the settlers, but also
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was able to advocate for the Native Americans too. He
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: was just that kind of a guy. He was that
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: he was that that's kind of the cut the cloth
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: he was cut from. I bet he put his mouth
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: around a piece piper too, speaking of one of the
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: first hippies. Uh, all right, So he's going around, he's
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: planting all these apple orchards and I guess presumably peach
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: because he was required to. But he's not known as
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Johnny Peachtree. No, just apple seed or peach seed, I guess. Uh.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: And he Here's the thing though, with these apples, like
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: we said, because he's planning them from seed only and
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: not grafting them. It's pretty wild, like it's like the
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: wild West. Apple wise, you don't know what's gonna come up.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Um many times, like you said, they're much too sour
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: to eat, But what they weren't too sour for is
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: to make booze out of them in the form of cider.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: And cider was a big, big part of frontier life.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Like they drank it. It's apparently, um New Englanders that
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: transplanted out on the western edges of Ohio would drink
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: close to eleven ounces of hard cider per day. And
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: it was a time when water quality was suspect, and
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: you knew you could count on that cider, right because
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I mean it's alcoholic, so it's fermented, which means that
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: any harmful bacteria has been killed. It can't really survive
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: in an alcoholic drink, right, It's wonderful, So they would
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: drink cider instead of water, which, by the way, eleven
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: ounces is it's like a bottle of cider today. No
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: it's not not too much, No it's not. But everyone
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: drank it every day. Instead of water. So there was
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: you know, a certain amount of buds going on, I'm sure,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: and who knows what the alcoholic content of the cider, right,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: but that was I mean, that was what apples were
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: used for. Um. I think Michael Pollan said that up
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: until prohibition, an apple in the United States had a
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: much greater chance of being turned into hard cider than
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: it did it just being eaten. And again it was
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: because most apples in the US were grown from seed,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: meaning they were sour, meaning they were much better or
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: for cider than they were for eating, right, And that's
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: how it was again up until prohibition. And one of
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the reasons why cider just kind of went away is
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: because prohibition. Apparently the Feds used to chop down apple
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: trees where they saw him to kind of say, no,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna make any cider out of this, you
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: hay seed hick. You got it. I'm gonna cut down
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: this tree right in front of your face, right exactly. Uh.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: You like cider, Yeah, I love it? Yeah, Yeah, it's
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: great stuff. Um. My initial introduction to cider was you know,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: really sweet, like I guess the first wave of the resurgence,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: like back in college in those days, what was the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: one that everyone drank would chuck? Yeah, that was it. Yeah,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: it was basically the zema of cider, at least back then.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I haven't had it in a while, so maybe they
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, so that's what I'm saying.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: They may have toned it down just regular hard cider.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, And it's not supposed to be it's it
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: was never supposed to be sweet. That was just a
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: weird anomally. So I think the cider now is much
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: closer to the traditional citer, which is it's it's got
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: like a deadbit of sweetness to it, but it's it's
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: definitely a lot more um beery than than apple juicy.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to dip my toe in the cider
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: pond once again. Do not do that, Just drink it.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Uh what else we have? Do we have anything else?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: In this guy? Johnny Appleseed? Um No, I think I
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: mentioned he was a sweet businessman. He was a friend
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: to the Native American and the European settler check and
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: check he uh oh. There's supposedly a tree in Nova,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Ohio on a farm. It's a hundred and seventy five
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: year old tree, and some people believe that it is
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the last remaining tree that can be found that Johnny
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Chapman a k a. Johnny Appleseed actually planted, because again
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the prohibition federalis chopped all his other stuff down. So
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: that's Johnny Appleseed. Everybody, Drink it up. If you want
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, send us an email.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: You can do worse than that. Just send it off
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.