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[tom <tom AT honeychrome.com>]

On Apr 10, 2008, at 12:57 AM, homestead-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> I don't know if the seed from the fruit breeds true, but I suspect  
> it does.
>
> Marie

If you plant the seeds from an apple you will not end up with a tree  
that produces that same apple- in fact each of the five seeds in an  
apple will produce a genetically different tree and the odds are  
tremendous that you won't get decent fruit (at least for eating).   
All of the trees of given named variety of apple basically come from  
cuttings/grafts from a single tree.  Back in the early days of this  
country orchards were planted from seed, as most of the apples were  
destined for cider, so being in 'ideal' eating or baking apple didn't  
matter much, but if one of those planted trees happened to produce a  
particularly good eating apple it was kind of like winning a prize.

One of the four sections in Michael Pollan's "Botany of Desire" is  
about the apple and is really quite interesting.