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The apple has been part of human culture since Adam & Eve. First domesticated in Asia Minor
long before the time of Christ, they spread to Greece by 300 BC and became a favorite food
for the Romans. Greek and Roman Mythology use apples as symbols for love and beauty. Apples
moved west as the Romans conquered England in the first century B.C.
Brought to North American in the 17th century by colonists in Massachusetts, apples were a
mainstay of American settlement. Records from the Massachusetts Bay Company show settlers grew
apples in New England as early as 1630. New York's Bowery was centuries ago, an apple orchard.
Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) was a real individual who traveled the Ohio Valley in the early
1800s distributing apple seeds to pioneers. Missionaries, Traders and Native Americans
continued spreading apple seeds westward.
Today, that pioneer apple imperative has grown into the United States' most widely grown and
eaten fruit.
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