LXXVIII 
APPLES HAVE TRAVELED FAR 
I SN’T IT ODD that in the Caucasus Mountains, where 
Turkey touches Russia, between the Black and Cas¬ 
pian seas, in the west of Asia, there are whole mountain 
sides that are white, in the spring, with the blossoms of 
apple trees that grow wild! 
When scientists take the back track, they find that this 
is the native home of our well-known apple, which con¬ 
tributes twice as much food to the people of the United 
States as any other fruit. 
There are wild apples growing all around the world in 
temperate zones, close relatives of the crab apple and not 
very good to eat. But here in the Caucasus there grows 
a wild apple that is sweet. It is the grandfather of all 
those apples that come to market in boxes, in New York, 
San Francisco, and Kalamazoo. 
The journey of those apples to market began some 
ten thousand years ago. At that time there lived in the 
Caucasus region certain tribes of white people that were 
destined to spread west and plant nations that would rule 
the world. They were the Aryans, sometimes called Cau¬ 
casians from these same mountains. They found this 
sweet apple in the woods and planted its seeds about their 
homes. In doing so, they established some of the first 
orchards that our ancestors ever knew. 
Later the Aryans moved west. When they did so, they 
took seeds from the best of their sweet apple trees, and 
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