Excerpt from The Quest of John Chapman: The Story of a Forgotten Hero<br><br>Some years ago, in making a study of the natu ral resources of our country, and the wealth that comes through the grains and fruits, as well as through the forests, mines, and manufacturing, I chanced upon the statement that the orchards of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys go back to the work of an old man called Johnny Appleseed, who first appeared on the Ohio in 1790, drifting down the river in a boat filled with seeds; a man whose name and work are unfamiliar to our gen cration, but who is known to have put out a full hundred orchards during his strange career. Something about this story captured my imagina tion, and at the first opportunity I went to Colum bus, Ohio, to search the records of the Historical Society. To my surprise, I found that innumer able legends, myths, and traditions have gathered around the name of this man who seems to have been the idol and hero of a generation that, of necessity, left few written records for historians.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.