Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) did not become famous for popularizing the apple... he basically found a clever backdoor to property rights in the expansion.

Basically if you can prove you have done any kind of land modification or maintenance, the land was yours to keep back then. So while he was travelling westward, he would stop at all the best areas of land and plant a few rows of apple seeds. A row of fruit trees was enough to claim beneficial use, and thus property.

In essence, he used apples to acquire a bunch of land and keep it with minimal work.

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