CHAPTER 1 Desire: Sweetness Plat: The Apple caauus postesticay| ons person ein! sme at ‘tenor eng ines ca Ie ts ng: mit gay oe sr Ath, ea sev of Oi ie nd owes syste rk wih ir iy bh eer Sma eos nap at fa compre of myn te iene of Sener roy "he pc ed fect of ht fen come tof neta ata eat Sete ghee st econ a tnt our ge es nym pth orayathr brent4 The Bony of Desire fora shirt anda tn po fora hat. According to she main Fer son County who deemed the scene worth recording the fellow in the canoe appeared toe snoozing without acarein the word ei dey trastng in the river to take him wherever it was he wanted. ogo. Theother hull his sideca, was idnglow in the water ander ‘the weight ofa small mountain of sods that hed been cael ‘blanked with mse and ud to ep them fom drying out in shes, “The flow snooring in the canoe was John Chapman, already ‘wellknown to people in Obiobyhenickname: Joba Appleseed. Hewes on his way to Marit, where the Muskingum River pokes «hig ole into the Ohio's northern bank, pointing straight into ‘he heart ofthe Northwest Terstary. Chapman's plan wast pant atece murs long one of that iver a-yet-unseted tributaries, which din the fers, thickly forested hill of ental Ohio as far ‘orth as Mansfeld. nll alibood, Chapman was coming fom Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania t0 which be returned euch yet ale apple seeds, separating them out fom the fae int mounds of pomsce that rose by theback dor of every cider an. single bushel of apple sed would have been enough to ‘plant more than three hundred thousand tres there's. a0 way of teling how many bushel of seed Chapman had in tow that day, ‘nut its safe to say his etamaran was bearing several whole or chars into the wilderness, ‘The image of Joba Chapman and his heap of apple seeds riding together down the Ohio has stayed with me since I fist came across ita fer years ag in an out-of print biography. The scene, formes has the resonance of myth—a myth about hw plants 2nd ‘people learned to use each other each doing forthe other things they could not do for themes, in the bargain changing cach othe and improving thie common lt Henry David Thoreau once wrote that iis remarkable bow Theapple «5 dosly the history ofthe apple tre is connected with that of man” and much of the American chapter ofthat story canbe teased out ‘of Chapman’sstor. les the story of how pioneers like him helped domestcate the frontier by seng it with Old Word plants “Ex- ‘tc wee apt 0 cal thee spies today in disparagement, yet svthost them the American wilderness might never ave become home, What did the apple got in return? A golden age: untold new varieties and halfa word of new habitat Avan emblem of the marrage between people and pants, the design of Chapman's pcala ft shes ne asst ight inpy- yg does a elation of parity and reciprocal exchange between instwo passengers. More than most of ws do, Chapman seems to have had Knack for looking atthe world fom the plans point ofiew—pomocentrcalls? you might sa. He understood he was working forthe apples as muchas they were working fri. Per- haps that's why he sometimes kenedhimselft bumblebee and why he wold rg up his boat the wayhe dd nse of towing is “shipment of seed behind his, Chapman lshed the to hulls to- ether so they would travel down the ivr sige by side. We give ours altogether too much credit in our dealings ‘with othe species. Ben the power over ature that domestication apposed represents is overstated, I takes to to perform that particular dance, fer al, and plenty of plants and animals have lected to iit out Thy as they might people have never been able to domesiste the oak tre, whose highly nutritious acorn re- main fa oo bitter forhumansto eat, viel the eachss sucha gement with the squirrel—which oligingly fr- ‘et wher it hs buried every fourth acorn or so (adeitedly, the cotinate is Beatrix Potters) —that the tree has never needed to ‘mtr into any kindof formal arangement with 3. ‘The apple hasbeen fr more eager to do business with humans, snd pothape nowhere more so than in America Like generations sation