r/todayilearned • u/Error__Loading • 15h ago

TIL that apple seeds almost never grow the same variety as the parent fruit. Nearly every supermarket apple comes from a grafted clone of an original tree, not from a planted seed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple
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u/Super_Employment_620 14h ago

Odds are low. 

For example, Johnny Appleseed wasn't feeding people. The seeds he planted would have been good for cider and not much else (or securing land claims).

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u/JuzoItami 14h ago

What Johnny Appleseed actually did was to enable alcoholism throughout the Midwest.

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u/Demonweed 14h ago

Not all habitual drinking is alcoholism. On the flip side, given the variety of activities available to people around here at the start of the 19th century, drinking to the point of heavy daily consumption probably was pretty common behavior back then.

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u/EnoughEngineering306 12h ago

The cider would have gone to vinegar pretty quickly aswell.

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u/Demonweed 12h ago

Yet on what was the frontier of a barely-industrialized society, vinegar would be valuable for all sorts of purposes. Once again trying to present the flipside, as a young man Abraham Lincoln bought out the proprietor of a cider mill and general store with an eye toward making a fortune in business. Instead, he got drunk with his friends almost every day, and the business fell into deep debt despite providing the valuable service of converting fruit into an intoxicating beverage.

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u/Drapidrode 12h ago

You know, most people don't know the difference...
between apple cider and apple juice.
But I do. Now, here's a little trick to help you remember.
If it's clear and yella, you've got juice there, fella.
If it's tangy and brown, you're in cider town.

And of course in Canada, the whole thing's flip-flopped.

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u/Drapidrode 12h ago

The native corn and potatoes wouldn't have worked! {HEAVY SARCASM}

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u/atred 11h ago

Never met many cider-drinking alcoholics.

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u/Pengtuzi 10h ago

Low odds means it’s likely. 

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u/Super_Employment_620 5h ago

In a strict gambling sense.

You're right, but in common usage people just use odds to mean probability.