This year we are going to have a bumper crop of apples. While driving down the back roads, I noticed that every wild apple tree is loaded with green apples. Although I had noticed one tree that was already dropping its apples, some trees will hang onto their fruit until well into the winter.

Frozen apples will become a valuable source of food for wildlife, especially deer. Even after the apples fall to the ground, rot and ferment, wildlife will still feed on the fermented remains. This natural cider gives the wildlife a shot high in acid and minerals. To most, a frozen apple is worthless, but to wildlife a frozen apple is a treat.

During the winter months when the ground is covered with snow, some winter foods become unavailable; however, the apples that persisted on the tree branches will now fall and be available to wildlife.

The wild apple trees undoubtedly grew from the cores of apples discarded by lumbermen, farmers and teamsters and are particularly common near old lumber camp sites and old tram roads. The apples from these wild apple trees are a good food supply for all types of wildlife. Wild or volunteer apple trees can be found growing in old fields, along roadways, fence rows and even in remote forest areas.

The apple has over 3,000 years of human meddling — including the pharaohs of Egypt, Romans, Greeks and others — which has generated many registered horticultural varieties. Our common apple tree is of European origin, which was brought to North America by the early colonists.

In L. H. Bailey’s book, “The Apple Tree” (published in 1922), it stated that there were more than 800 varieties listed in the nurseryman’s catalog; however, not all were available. When Mary Alice bakes an apple pie, she prefers to use either Cortland or Granny Smith apples to make her pies.

Hmm, I think we need to make a trip to the orchard.

The apple’s scientific name is malus, which is Latin, meaning bad. This comes from the Bible, where in the Garden of Eden, Eve removed the apple from the forbidden tree; however, Bible scholars now agree that the fatal fruit probably wasn’t an apple but some other fruit, possibly a pomegranate.

In early times, the old English word was appel, which applied to any fruit in general. Our word apple comes from the Latin word pomum, meaning fruit, and in English, it is classified as a pome.

A pome is a fruit that has many seeds within the core at the center. The apple belongs to the pome group as opposed to the stone group, which refers to fruit with a stone, such as a peach. Our word fruit comes from the Latin word fruor, meaning “I delight in.”

Much folklore is associated with the apple. An Ancient Greek that wished to propose to a woman would toss her an apple, and if she caught the apple, he knew the answer was yes. In Greek mythology, Gaia (Mother Earth) presented a tree with golden apples to Zeus and his bride (Hera) on their wedding day. This tree was guarded by Ladon, a serpent that never slept. The golden apples from the tree became involved with many tales of love, bribery and temptation.

The apple is a temperate fruit, which requires a three-month dormant period to set fruit in the spring; therefore, the apple needs our northern winters, and this is the reason apple orchards aren’t found growing in the deep south.

The apple belongs to the big rose family, which includes over 2,000 species of plants, shrubs and trees. The rose, pear, peach, plum, cherry, blackberry, raspberry and strawberry are also members of the rose family.

Although we often hear that someone or something is as American as apple pie, the apple was brought to America. John Endicott, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, has been given the credit for bringing the first apple tree to America. Today, United States is the world leader in apple production.

No article on apples would be complete without mentioning Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman), who, after collecting apple seeds from cider mills in Pennsylvania, headed west. For 40 years, he planted apple trees in what he considered likely spots for trees to grow. In 1845, after years of exhaustion from walking — being poorly clad and shod — exposure to the weather and often sleeping under the stars, Chapman died in Indiana. The words on his tombstone read, “He lived for others.”

Today’s cultivated apple trees do not appear as those apple trees of old. They are small and grow on a wire, which makes it easy to pick.

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.