EbookMarketWatch

Apple trees were the most popularly grown fruit tree in colonial America and practically every settlement farm and backyard gardener planted this easily grown fruit tree, or easier, the seed of the apple could be planted to establish a permanent food supply. Growing these apple tree products could be eaten fresh or could be dried and preserved in many different ways to eat at a later time. Historical instances on the existence of apple trees are documented from folklore, legends, stone images on carved tablets, petrified slices of apples on plates for tomb offerings, and overwhelming numbers of references from Hebrew Bible scriptures and innumerable writings from poetry, songs, literary publications, and many other surviving accounts of all civilizations in the ancient world. One of the earliest archeological evidences of apple tree fruit comes from the remains of excavations from Jericho, Jordan, that has been dated 6500 BC by radiochemical analysis of carbon atoms.

The petrified remains of apple slices that were found in a saucer of an ancient Mesopotamian tomb, the burial site of royalty dates back to 2500 BC and was uncovered in southern Iran. In the ancient historical accounts of the fruit of the apple tree, there appears to be an incomprehensible trail of evidence that no other fruit could match. The interest shown in apples by the Greek and Roman philosophers, poets, historians, and literary masters was even extended to Renaissance painters, royal chefs to the Tsars of Russia and too many other references to mention.

In colonial America, apple trees were grown and planted from seeds in orchards by William Blackstone at Boston, Massachusetts in the 1600′s. Early documents on file at the National Library in Washington, DC suggest that all land owners in Massachusetts had begun growing apple trees by the 1640′s.

William Bartram, the famous explorer and botanist, wrote in his book, Travels, “I observed, in a very thriving condition, two or three large apple trees” in 1773, while traveling near Mobile, Alabama. It is important to realize that these large apple trees found growing in Alabama in 1773 could very easily have been grown from the seed planted by Creek Indians. Those seed may have been obtained by the Indians from American colonists on the Eastern coast of the United States at a much earlier time or from French farmers who settles in areas of agricultural land grants north of Mobile. General Oglethorpe planned in 1733 to plant “various plants, subtropical and temperate, which might prove valuable for Georgian farms and orchards,” according to William Bartram in his book Travels, published 40 years later. William Bartram’s father, John Bartram, trip to “East Florida” (Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas) was, in part at least, an attempt to inventory the plant resources of England’s new acquisition—after expelling the Spanish from East Florida.

Many modern botanists believe that the improved apple that we know today descended from the crabapple that is commonly interplanted with apple trees for cross pollination. Old documents record that fact “cultivated apples descended from crab-tree or wild apple-Pyrus malus.” Wild crabapple tree seeds appeared on the list of collected seeds in the Plant List of 1783 of William Bartram and his father, John Bartram. In William Bartram’s book, Travels in 1773, he “observed amongst them (fruit trees) the wild crab (Pyrus coronaria) in his explorations near Mobile, Alabama. Robert Prince established the first operating nursery in the American colonies at Flushing, New York, in the 1700′s, where he offered apple trees for sale at his nursery that was visited by General George Washington, who later became the first President of the United States. President Thomas Jefferson was planting and growing apple trees at his fruit tree orchard in Monticello, Virginia, in the early 1800′s.

The legendary Johnny Appleseed was responsible for the rapid development of the apple trees growing and planting when he established a nursery in the Midwest that sold both apple trees and seed to be planted for growing into trees in the 1800′s. Over 2000 cultivars of apple trees are listed as being grown today, many of the trees resulting from the huge apple seed dispersion that was begun by the memorable ambition of Johnny Appleseed to entirely cover the landscape of America with the fruit of apple trees.

Over the centuries, apple trees became susceptible to many disease problems such as fire blight; however, Dr. C.S. Crandall from the University of Illinois performed several backcrosses that involved modern cultivars and the apple tree ancestor ‘crabapple,’ Malus floribunda. The wild crabapple contained an immunity factor within its genetic composition towards all major bacterial and fungal diseases of apple trees. In 1989, researchers from the pomology department at Cornell University extracted an immune fire blight gene from a nocturnal moth and transplanted it into an apple fruit, resulting in the total defeat of fire blight in that particular apple tree cultivar.

Fruiting of apple trees is perhaps the most troublesome characteristic experienced by an orchardist or a backyard fruit tree gardener. Most cultivars of apple trees require cross pollination of two separate varieties in order to set fruit on the tree.

It is necessary that the blossoms of the two apple tree flowers develop pollen at the same time, in order that fruit will be set, which can be a tricky problem to correct. The simplist solution to pollinate apple trees is to use the ancestor of the modern day apple cultivars, the crabapple, which sheds its pollen over a long period of time and easily overlaps the apple tree cultivar flowering period. Crabapple trees produce a fruit that is much smaller than the common apple, but it can be used in cooking in various ways, and it is loved by wildlife in the fall and winter when wildlife food is scarce for animals and birds. Crabapple trees are also valuable when used as flowering trees that begin blooming in early spring with huge clusters of pink, white, and even red blossoms. Several outstanding grafted flowering tree selections are available, such as: Brandywine, Red Perfection, Radiant, and Spring Snow.

Apple trees are easy to grow, and if a gardener purchases a large tree, he may experience fruit development even on the first year of planting and growing. The selection of the proper cultivar of grafted apple trees is extremely important, because even though the apple fruit can be grown in most areas of the United States, the trees require different amounts of chilling temperatures in order to flower. The interesting introduction of low chill cultivars from Israel makes it possible to experience apple growing and planting as far south as Florida. Certain popularly grown cultivars of apple trees in the United States today are: Arkansas Black, Gala, Granny Smith, Red Rome, Anna, Red Fuji, Yates, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Anna, Ein Shemer, and Golden Dorsett. Apples contain some mysterious quality that can preserve it from deterioration for centuries. Apple slices can be dried and kept delicious for long periods of time. This mysterious characteristic may be recognized by man’s association of paradise being connected and related to Eve and Adam picking apples from a fruit tree growing in paradise for their eternal pleasure, that was planted by God and described as the tree of life at the fabled Garden of Eden. We see this fruit of paradise recurs in the history of many other ancient civilizations. A similar account that we read as children in the book of Genesis from the scriptures in the Hebrew Bible.

Perhaps this mysterious genetic quality of apples in preservation makes it so important as providing medical benefits backed up by that memorable proverb, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Experiments from researchers in California have shown that apple fruit is very rich in antioxidants, a biological compound that combats, stroke, heart disease, and many other health problems.

The eBook reader could be used to save on paper, and help to save our trees and forests, not to mention save money.

In today’s business environment, information is becoming increasingly more necessary, and certainly the printed word more common. The corporate executive has responsibilities that include budget reviews, marketing analysis, documents relating to the profit and loss of specific activities as well as overall performance, and employee production reports and records, just to name a few.

Frequently, these documents have to be printed and taken to the corporate meeting for review and discussion. Perhaps an eBook Reader could not only save the company a great deal of money, but could also save the world a number of trees.

Never before has so much information been available to us since the advent of the computer age. Now the question becomes, how do we manage all of this information effectively and how do we find the methods which best suit us for digesting and studying the information that is available?  Part of that process includes the corporate executive analyzing data and then presenting summarizations of that data upwards for approval.

Let’s consider the situation where a company has scheduled a Management Meeting to discuss next year’s budget. This would require each individual department reviewing their detailed budget as well as all departments looking at the “big picture” of the entire company budget. Each manager is usually given computer access to this information and then of course a manual of sorts is printed for all managers to bring to the board room to the meeting.

Now let’s assume that all managers have been issued with an eBook Reader. Not only has the company saved thousands of sheets of paper, but they’ve also saved on ink and the salary involved in an employee copying documents and binding them for an appropriate presentation. Doesn’t it make sense from a budgetary standpoint to consider such an option?

Not only that, but the executive now has the option of bringing a number of other pertinent documents to the meeting on the eReader, so that they are available should the need arise. As it was noted by Digital Book Readers, current e-Readers in the marketplace provide great simplicity when searching for a specific topic or scanning for a topic of interest.

Here are some ways in which a company could benefit by the use of an eReader:

Educational Training Materials

Most companies have an orientation of sorts whenever they hire new employees.  Let’s use the casino industry as an example. The typical casino will have around 1500 to 2000 employees. When a new casino opens, all employees must go through an orientation process. Each employee is provided with a number of hand-outs, training materials, and manuals describing various policies and procedures of the company. If the typical number of pages distributed is 100, we now have copied and produced 200,000 pages at the time of opening.

Throughout the company’s lifetime, the typical attrition rate is around 35%. So that means we are consistently training new employees as old employees move on. This means more and more paper is required to maintain the training schedule. As expansions occur, once again, new employees must be trained.  More paper, more costs.

However, if instead, the casino had eBook Readers that could be distributed to the employees and utilized as needed, the costs would be considerably less in a short period of time. And that’s not even taking into consideration the additional training that occurs in each department throughout the lifetime of the company.

Company Meetings

Company meetings occur frequently, and in most cases require a great deal of paperwork. From agendas, to marketing reports, to budget information, to the list of documents distributed in meetings. The eReader would eliminate a number of these documents and once again, save the company money.

Required Reading

Many companies now require various levels of employees to read industry business books and reports. This is ideal territory for an eBook reader.

Trade Publications

These are now required reading for any professional who wishes to stay on top of the most current trends in their chosen field. An eReader would be ideal for the busy professional, who could check up on recent developments while traveling.

Each of these will save both time and money, both in corporate terms and for individuals. However, there is more to it than just that, because there would be a huge environmental implication. The less paper used, the fewer trees would have to be destroyed to produce it.

Unfortunately, big business has not encompassed eBook readers much, possibly through ignorance but more likely through a resistance to make such a radical switch. There appears to be a reluctance to move away from paper-based systems. The computer age was heralded by much talk of the ‘paperless’ office. Where is it? There now appears to be even more paper than usual.

There appears to be a need for businesses to re-evaluate their increasing use of paper, particularly for education and training, and for dissemination of business reports, agendas and minutes. As Casey Ashe of the Tulsa Community College said last year, “If e-readers become a business technology tool, they will take off”. 

Publisher Simon and Schuster has taken to them. “It’s a win for us in terms of convenience, speed, saving paper and (lowering) mailing costs,” according to their spokesman, Adam Rothberg.

Of course, they have a vested interest because they also sell eBooks! Nevertheless, it is true that eBook readers can save businesses money and time, and allow people to more easily learn while on the move. There are few reasons why corporate America cannot adopt eBook readers and play their plant in saving trees, whilst also saving their shareholders money.