Did You Know?
The Red Delicious apple was discovered by a Quaker
Jesse Hiatt, a Quaker farmer in Peru, Iowa, found the seedling growing out of place in his orchard in 1872 and chopped it down. It grew back the next year
and he chopped it down again. When it grew back the third year, he said, "If thee must grow, thee may."
For the next ten years, he cared for the apple seedling without knowing what it would produce. Apples freely cross breed and mutate, with results that can be spectacularly unpalatable or sublime. Jesse knew the gamble, having already developed two varieties, Hiatt Sweet and Hiatt Black.
When the tree finally produced its fruit, Jesse declared it the “best-tasting apple in the world” and originally named it Hawkeye after the state where he made his home with his wife and ten children. The new breed was re-christened “Delicious” after it won first prize in a contest in Louisiana, Missouri.
Jesse died in 1898 at the age of 72. The original Red Delicious tree survived him until the 1940s, and even after it died, sprouts grew up around the stump.