Wild Apples

I was out picking wild apples (which make the best cider), when a car of tourists pulled onto the road where I was.  I overheard the driver complain to his passenger that someone had misdirected them… they were looking for commercial apples.  These apples (the ones I was picking) were just wild, and who knew what they were…. (implying that they weren’t any good because they didn’t have a name bestowed on them by a human).  I had to laugh.  It’s in the agricultural margins like that roadside tree that I was picking that the vast diversity in agriculture gets developed.  Thank goodness for all of the unnamed fruit in the liminal spaces between wild plants and domestic ones.  There lies quality.