The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1879-03-18
$Rs gIoon'tislD Sgin''s.
HOUSE, FARM AND GARDEN.


origin of the great number of apple trees
in the West
The immense apple crop of this part of
the state of Ohio during the last season
serves to recall the life of its pioneer nur-
seryman, whose memory is yet green in
the minds of many of the oldest settlers.
AS hero ofendurance that was volunta-
rally assumed, and of toll the benefits of
which could only be reaped by posterity,
the name of Johnathan Chapman, better
known as Johnny Appleseed, deserves a
perpetuity beyond that of generation
of lesser lights passed in the glare and
romance of the tomahawk and scalping-
knife period. Few men so unpretending
have been SO extensively useful in their
day and generation. The evil that he
did, ifany, died with him; the good lives
after him, bearing annual fruit over an
acre of one hundred thousand square
miles, extending from the Ohio River to
the great northern lakes. Many of the
best orchards of this and adjoining coun-
ties are from trees which had their first
growth in his forest nurseries. The wri-
ter looks from his window upon long
rows of apple trees .transplanted from
Johnny's nursery near the old Indian
Green Town.
Johnathan Chapman was born in Bos-
ton about the year 1875. How he drifted
from that point to the wilds of Western
Pennsylvania, where he was first known
to have INDUCED his peculiar monoma-
mia for the planting of apple trees in the
wilderness, is not known. The rapid
settlement of that part of the country,
however, soon drove him further west
ward. In 1901 he entered the Territory
of Ohio with a horse-load of apple-seeds,
gathered from the cider presses of West
ern Pennsylvania; coming first to
Licking county, and planting his seeds
in many fertile spots on and about the
banks of Licking Creek. For the next
five years he disappeared, passing the
period, doubtless, in the establishment
of other nurseries in different quarter.
In 1906 he was seen by pioneer settler
of Jefferson county, drifting slowly
down the Ohio River in two canoes,
lashed together, and loaded with apple
seeds. These he was transporting west
ward, for the purpose of creating
orchards upon the furthest verge of
white settlement. Entering the Musk
ingum River at Marietta, he passed by
various tributaries to the head of
navigation in this county. Still a
region of forest crowned hills and green
valleys, and possessing romantic
beauty which railroads and bustling
towns and cities have not served to
obliterate, the wild surroundings and
primal silence of the veritable wilderness
must have been tenfold more pictur-
esque to the eye of Appleseed in those
early days.
In this instance,a ,as in others afterward,
Johnny selected the most fertile spots
in the rich loamy grounds on the banks
ofthe creeks for this purpose planting
often as high as sixteen bushels of seed
to the acre, and enclosing the grounds
with a slight fence or guard of brush.
1AO chSh iCit thO DioOC uhtll lhC tlCSS
had in measure grown. The old set
tiers describe the margins of the streams
upon which the early nurseries were
planted as thickly covered over with
low matted growth of timber, while
near the waters edge a rank mass of
long grass interlaced with morning
glory and wild-pea vines, among which
dropping willows and clustering elders
at0O6 like oQnfinala tha ntIfrlnot Of
civilization.
The canoe voyage of 1906 appears to
have been the only occasion upon
which Johnny adopted that method of
transportation, all his other journeys
having been made on foot over the old
trail leading from Fort Duquesne to
Detroit by way of Fort Sandusky,
known as "the second route through
the wilderness of Ohio" Having
planted one stock of seeds, he would
return to Pennsylvania for another,
gathering them from the cider-presses
at different places. These seeds he
leathern bags, in place of linen ones,
the dense growth of hnderbrush and
briars encountered upon the way maxi
ing the use of some more durable fabric
necessary. Sometimes the bags found
transportation on the back of an aged
or broken down horse which their
owner had mercifully rescued from
harder usage, but more frequently on
his own sturdy shoulders. A long and
toilsome journey it was; but Johnny,
impelled in his eccentricities by some
gnawing misery of the heart which
could only find relief in incessant
motion, or actuated by his philanthropic
monOmanja alone, unhesitatingly
shouldered his bags of apple-seeds; and,
penetrating to the remote Wilhernass