Apple Trees and Apple Treats
One of nature's greatest treats are apples, and fall and apples go together naturally, don't you think?
I bet you know that apples are the number one snack in the world. There are over 8000 varieties of apples known around the world, but only 100 varieties are grown commercially in the United States. The most popular apple is, of course, the Red Delicious.
Apple trees have been grown and prized for their fruit all the way back in ancient Rome. When the Romans conquered England around the first century BC, they brought apple cultivation with them, and soon apples were being grown in England and other parts of Europe.
But when the Pilgrims came to America, they found only crabapples growing here. The fruit of the crabapple was not very tasty. So the Pilgrims in the Massachusetts Bay Colony asked for seeds and cuttings from England. They were brought over on later voyages of the Mayflower. As time went on, and the country was settled, many farms began growing apple trees.
Today, the United States and Canada are the principal growers of apples. Washington State grows the most apples, but there are 35 or more other states that also grow apples commercially. Americans eat 18 pounds of fresh apples per year, while Europeans eat 46 pounds. And just one apple tree can bear over 800 pounds of apples in a single year!
Once upon a time, I knew the blessings of an old but prolificaly bearing apple tree. It was in the seventies, when I owned a small, 25 acre tract of rolling land that came with a quaint, dilapidated farm house, a weathered but sturdy barn, and huge old apple tree. I wasn't living on that farm, but I traveled there every fall, for five years, just so I could reap the harvest that old apple tree provided every year.
I've always been a spur of the moment kind of person, and that's how I acquired that old farm-on the spur of the moment. I had come to the Ozarks at the invitation of a friend who had bought a farm here. Of course, I became enchanted with the area. But I had a job and family obligations in the city, so moving, right then and there was out of the question.
Shortly after I left my friends place, on my way back to Ohio, I stopped at the Eleven Point River to admire its picturesque beauty. The Eleven Point River flows through an area known as the Irish Wilderness, and more picturesque beauty you won't find anywhere else, at least to my way of thinking. There were people on the bank of the river fishing, and we soon struck up a conversation. While I watched them reeling in some hefty sized brown trout, I told them how I had been visiting the area, and how enchanted I was with it.
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