There's a fable about a character called Johnny Appleseed who wandered the countryside scattering apple seeds from a bag he carried. The fable says that's why there's apple trees growing wild. There's a hint of a folk song about him whispering at the edges of my memory, too. (Now that's going to bug me all day!)
One of my musings for a long time has been: how do apple trees end up growing along the road or in the middle of a fallow field?
God is good!
I've raked up most of the fallen apples from the tree out front. Seems a bit silly now because a large, gray squirrel has taken to grabbing some of the remaining dropped apples. He quickly whisks them away and buries them in a hidden spot. It's a sweet stash for later when food isn't so easily found.
Aha!! I've found the culprit! That's how apple trees get planted!
I also drove over the few apples in the lawn with the lawn mower. It chopped them up, speeding up the rate of decomposition. A pair of Mourning Doves poked and pecked among the broken bits. It seems they were after the seeds. Perhaps passing through the digestive tract of birds helps the seeds germinate.
Aha!! Another tree planting culprit! I bet it's them flying over a field and doing what birds do that help apple trees grow in the middle of nowhere.
Or a deer. Or a raccoon. Perhaps a skunk might be a part of this tree planting conspiracy.
So it appears Johnny has help.
Humans must help, too. More than a few apple cores have been tossed out the window of a car. It probably isn't as successful as Mr. Squirrel burying the cores but maybe, just maybe, there are a few trees growing because of us.
Most modern apple trees are produced by grafting the desired branches onto crab apple tree trunks so I don't know how easily the seeds germinate or even if they do. The nursery now sells apple trees with five different varieties of apples on one tree! I think most of the roadside apples are older breeds which probably grow from seeds. It's good to know that nature has a hand in preserving these ancient species. Who knows? One day we may need them.
Most of them are delicious, too. And organic. I've never found a worm in one.
I heard a teaching on the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that it wasn't an apple but a pomegranate. I guess when the translation was made, most people would have never seen a pomegranate so wouldn't be able to understand. It makes sense to have substituted an apple.
I'm thinking too that a pomegranate is nothing but seeds. Did each one represent one facet of good and evil?
The fruit's juices are red, symbolic of the Blood that would be shed once evil came into God's garden.
"And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'" Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die."" Gen 3:2-4
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