Fine rosy apples are exported every year from America and Canada. There they grow in great orchards. This is a story which tells how the first apple trees were planted in America.

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Long ago, beyond the snow-capped mountains of the Far West, there spread great forests where tribes of Indians lived. One of the first white men to cross the mountains into these forests was called John Chapman.

The stories say that he had long, light hair, a kind face and bright eyes. He wore an old sack instead of a coat, and he carried upon his back a big bag made of skins. This bag was full of apple pips and other seeds.

As John Chapman made his way through the forests, he would stop at every clearing among the trees; with his hands he would dig holes in the earth and into the holes he would drop handfuls of apple pips, covering them with earth again.

After this he would cut down wood and make rough fences round the places where he had set the apple seeds, before he went on his way. At night he slept in the forest; and the roots and berries which he found were his only food.

The fierce, wild Indians who dwelt in the forest soon found the white man out and they began to watch him in secret.
They saw how he talked to the birds and beasts, and how he helped and cared for those that were hurt or sick. They saw, too, that he never harmed any living creature, whether bird or beast.

2

By and by, the Indians made up their minds that this strange white man must be a kind of doctor, or medicine-man, as they called him. They made friends with him, and they asked him to give them medicine to make sick people well.

John Chapman took some seeds from his bag and planted them in the earth. 'Let them stay,' he said to the Indians, until I come to this place again.'

When next he visited the place, the seeds had grown into herbs. John Chapman gathered them and showed the Indians how to make a medicine that quickly cured those of their tribe who were sick.
So the Indians praised and honored him and made a great feast for him. They would have given him rich gifts of beads and furs and feathers too but Chapman did not wish to take gifts.

He went on his way again through the forests, planting his apple seeds in every open space and building fences to protect them.
He met more tribes of Indians with whom he made friends. Indeed, no one harmed him, for it was his way to help and love every man and beast.
Many years went by and John Chapman, still travelling in the forests and planting his apple seeds, grew into a bent old man.

By this time other white men had followed him westward over the mountains to make new homes. They found the places where he had planted the first seeds, and behold! those seeds were now splendid apple trees, bearing beautiful fruit.
More and more trees were found as the white people went further westward. What a grand, rich harvest of fruit was raised from what Chapman had sown!

Soon his name was known and loved far and wide in that land of the Far West. 'John Appleseed' the people called him, and they welcomed him as an honored guest whenever he visited their homes. John Appleseed lived to be an old man, yet until his last day he was a wanderer in the forests that he loved so well.

The seeds which he had planted everywhere grew into fine trees for the use of the men who came after him. Other trees were raised from them, and thus began the great orchards and fruit farms of North America.
So, when next we eat a rosy, sweet Canadian apple, let us be grateful to kind old John Appleseed.