A is for Apples
What do I know about apples? Let me tell you.
Nothing.
I know that they grow on trees, I know that they make strong rootstock, I know that their pips contain small amounts of cyanide.
So not nothing exactly, but perhaps 1% of all there is to know about apples. Which begs the question; how much is there to know about apples? 100 facts? 1000 facts? With all the new discoveries in the world, who is to say that these facts remain valid - that one small nudge further towards a fact being incorrect affects them all like dominoes? I mean, we once thought that bloodletting was a key medical procedure.
Apples come in a variety of shapes, sizes, uses, tastes, growing conditions and secondary uses. They are extensively cultivated and carry significant connotations. The bible - case in point. Esclepius, maybe - although I would need to look that up. Ah, no Aesculus. Still haven’t looked it up, but I'll come back to you on that one.
For apples to appear in the bible, however, they would have needed to have been introduced to the region sooner. So as far as we know, it was more likely that the original fruit was an apricot. Or a date. Or something else, but not an apple. So here we are on false apples already.
One fact I do know about apples is that they grow from blossoms.
Apple blossoms are beautiful, but we can’t know everything.
Fact in my head number two about apples:
Scrumping apples was a big issue in the olden days of England - it was a verb (still might be) for stealing apples from private fields to make cider with and this is where the word ‘Scrumpy’ comes from. Great cider - 10/10, would drink again if I could remember what happened after the first one.
Fact in my head number three about apples:
Newton’s apple. Newton shot an apple from someone’s head, or instructed someone else to do so. This proved his theory of gravity. I have a number of reservations about this story which are entirely uninformed.
Possible apple fact number four:
Apple trees will not grow next to rivers. I know this from an empirical study called “the apple tree thing” for which I was the lead scientist amongst a group of other six year old children, who also had no prior horticulture experience. In summary:
Question: “How many apple trees are growing by the side of this river?”
Answer: “None (gasp!). Apple trees do not grow next to rivers, so they can’t exist.
This may be true, and it may not be. Such is the joy of believing adults. In hindsight, there would have been a number of factors at play:
The clay content of the soil next to the river
The topography of the land
The type of apple trees
The adult’s knowledge of amenity crop farming
The purpose for which this exercise was provided by the adult, e.g. to stop me being a nuisance, to teach me about apples, to give me a fact I could share.
I still haven't looked up whether this is true, and I don’t want to because it still remains a small part inside me of the mystery of life as a child. Apple blossoms are beautiful, and we can’t know everything.
