ike Chapman, the writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) favored the seedling apple tree over the predictable grafted one. In his final work, collected and published posthumously under the title Wild Fruits, he has much to say about apples. He extols the diversity of seedling trees: "Who knows but this chance wild fruit, planted by a cow or a bird on some remote and rocky hillside…may be the choicest of all its kind?" Thoreau also believes that wild apples have a superior taste with "more racy and wild American flavors…" than grafted apples.