Everyone knows the story of Johnny Appleseed, but few are perhaps familiar with the tale of Johnny's less successful sister, Hortense Guavaseed.
An early nineteenth-century evangelist of what would become contemporary Californian juicing culture, Hortense's attempt to introduce tropical fruit cultivation into the northern United States were obviously doomed from the start. Yet she was determined to outshine her famous brother's apple tree distribution accomplishments.
Perhaps one reason for Hortense Guavaseed's failure, despite the unsuitability guava in a non-tropical ecosystem, was that she, unlike brother Johnny Appleseed, was not a Swedenborgian and sang no inspiring hymns before dinner.
Alas, we shall never know. Metaphysical speculations upon the subject of quixotic agricultural endeavor are beyond the scope of this blog, as indeed are most subjects. Nevertheless, I sang inspiring hymns to the Mandrake roots in my window box. They all withered and died.
I guess the moral of the Appleseed and Guavaseed family rivalry is: farm to table is one thing if you want to cook a slice of apple with your pork chop, but tropical fruit plantation to five-speed blender for a refreshing smoothie is something else entirely, requiring state-of-the-art refrigeration and efficient, modern transport links which were unavailable in Hortense's time.
She would die of heartbreak after bringing pineapples to Hawaii only to discover there were loads already there. Such is the fate of many dreamers whose stories are lost to history.
