Complex sentence: In the years that followed, Gideon experimented with apple and fruit growing, planting thousands of trees, but most of his trees died within a few years, if not right away, and none of them bore much fruit.
Split into simpler sentences: In the years that followed, Gideon experimented with apple and fruit growing, planting thousands of trees. But most of his trees died within a few years, if not right away, and none of them bore much fruit.