Words to Grow On

April 21, 2008

The Apple of His Eye

By

Cheryl Miller

Part 1

Introduction

The apple is the most valuable of all the fruits that grow on trees.  It is also more widely grown than any other fruit.  Apple trees grow everywhere except in the very hottest and coldest regions of the world. 

Apples are often mentioned in early legends, poems, and religious books.  The "fruit" which the bible says Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden is believed by many to have been an apple.

Most apples are eaten raw.  They are also used in making jellies, pied, puddings, applesauce, and dumplings.  Some grades of apples are dehydrated (cut up and dried) before they are sold.

Fresh raw apples are about 84 per cent water.  There are nearly 7, 500 varieties of apples grown in the world.   2,500 of these varieties grow in the United States. 

Johnny Appleseed was the name given John Chapman, a pioneer who has become a legendary figure in American history.   At the beginning of the 1800's he appeared along the Ohio River and became known to his frontier neighbors as "Johnny Appleseed."

He was not much to look at!  He was such a sawed-off scrawny little fellow wearing his gunnysack coat, his books stuffed in the front of it, and on his head his stewpot hat kept him protected from the sun.  He never wore any shoes and carried no weapons to protect himself.  Wherever he went, he carried a large sack of apple seeds on his back.

You see, he was headed out West all because of a little girl who didn't want to leave the apple trees and move West with her parents.

Jonathan Chapman promised her that there would be apple trees in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, so everyone started saving their apple seeds for him.

Johnny left for the West and as he planted the seeds he would sing this song:

The Lord is good to me and so I thank the Lord

For giving me the things I need, the sun, the rain and the appleseed.

The Lord is good to me.

I owe the Lord so much, for everything I see.

I 'm certain if it weren't for Him

There'd be no apples on this limb.

He's been good to me.

Oh, here am I 'neath the blue, blue sky, a doing as I please,

Singing with my feathered friends, humming with the bees.

I wake up every day, as happy as can be

Because I know that with His care, my apple trees will still be there.

The Lord is good to me.

All the settlers were delighted to see Johnny, for he brought news from the villages.  After visiting awhile, he would ask, "Now do you want to hear some news from heaven?"  He'd take out his Bible and read his favorite verse found in Ecclesiastes 11:6  "IN THE MORNING SOW YOUR SEED, AND AT EVENING WITH HOLD NOT YOUR HAND; FOR YOU DO NOT KNOW WHICH WILL PROSPER, THIS OR THAT, OR WHETHER BOTH ALIKE WILL BE GOOD."   And then he would add,  "IT IS GOD WHO GIVETH THE INCREASE."

Johnny Appleseed learned very quickly that the APPLE and CHRIST had a lot of similarities.