Who Was Johnny Appleseed 苹果核约翰尼 Chapter 5 The Apple Business Grows

In 1800, the census¹ counted 5.3 million people in the United States. Pennsylvania was getting too crowded to suit Johnny.

When he was twenty-six, he led a horse across the Pennsylvania border into Ohio. It was carrying a load of apple seeds. He planted his first Ohio orchard² near the town of Carrollton. He would plant many more orchards³ in north and central Ohio.

At this time, most of Ohio was still a forested wilderness⁴ full of bears and other wild animals. Not many people lived there, and the ones who did were rough and wild. Johnny had grown up in the colonies, so he stood out among these men. Even though he wasn’t like them, he seemed to enjoy their company.

Johnny still went back to Pennsylvania cider mills to get seeds in the following years. Once, he tied two canoes together and filled them with apple seeds and supplies and traveled home by river.

Many stories of this time involve Johnny surprising settlers by suddenly popping out of the woods. Sometimes he seemed to appear out of nowhere to say hello. At other times, he warned them of hostile Native Americans nearby.

The new United States government had decided⁵ that an area could become a state when its population reached sixty thousand. In 1803 Ohio became the seventeenth state. Johnny realized that central Ohio would become a major pathway for pioneers settling in the area and farther west. He began to focus on his Ohio orchards.

This ability to envision the future is what made Johnny so important in the history of American settlement. He had a knack⁶ for figuring out where people were going to move to next. Before a big rush of people went to a new area, he somehow got there first and planted apple trees.

Other farmers gathered apple seeds from cider mills just as Johnny did. They planted orchards in the frontier, too. But most of them settled down next to their orchards. They built homes and began families. Johnny stayed on the move, planting as he went. Over the years, he planted many orchards spread over three states. No one else did that.

The new Ohio state government began offering small areas of land for sale. When Johnny turned thirty-five, he had saved enough money to buy some. This was the first land he ever bought.

Johnny told his father about the rich farmland in Ohio. In 1805 his father moved the family to Ohio, settling near Marietta. Johnny didn’t live with them. Marietta had been around for a while and already had enough orchards.

The Ohio Company wanted settlers to buy land in Ohio and stay there. So they made a rule. Settlers had to plant fifty apple trees and twenty peach trees on every one hundred acres of land they bought. The company believed that settlers would be likely to stay once they had done so much work on a piece of land.

This rule was a lucky break for Johnny Appleseed. Ohio settlers were in a hurry to plant orchards. They were anxious to buy his seedlings⁷.

1 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

2 orchard   

n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场

参考例句：

• My orchard is bearing well this year.今年我的果园果实累累。
• Each bamboo house was surrounded by a thriving orchard.每座竹楼周围都是茂密的果园。

3 orchards   

（通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They turned the hills into orchards and plains into granaries. 他们把山坡变成了果园，把平地变成了粮仓。
• Some of the new planted apple orchards have also begun to bear. 有些新开的苹果园也开始结苹果了。

4 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 knack   

n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法

参考例句：

• He has a knack of teaching arithmetic.他教算术有诀窍。
• Making omelettes isn't difficult,but there's a knack to it.做煎蛋饼并不难，但有窍门。

7 seedlings   

n.刚出芽的幼苗( seedling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Ninety-five per cent of the new seedlings have survived. 新栽的树苗95%都已成活。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• In such wet weather we must prevent the seedlings from rotting. 这样的阴雨天要防止烂秧。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》