Maria Ann Sherwood was born in Peasmarsh, England back in 1799 to John and Hannah. She married Thomas in 1819, the union bore eight children of which five lived to adulthood. Both Maria and Thomas were illiterate as both of them worked as a farm laborer. They lived at Beckley, Sussex for the next nineteen years.
They moved to New South Wales as free settlers in 1838. In 1856, Thomas bought two tracks of land for an orchard. BTW those two tracks of land were approximately 24 acres. With the purchase of that land they were able to provide fresh produce for the Sydney market. Maria sold her homemade fruit pies. She was given a box of French crab apples from a local wholesaler to use in her pies. After harvesting the fruit, she discarded the peelings and seeds along with the other peelings and seeds into a compost on her farm. From those discards, she will forever be written down in the history books.
For you see those discarded seeds cross pollenated. The result of Maria Ann Sherwood Smith’s casual discards resulted in what we now call Granny Smith apples, now you know the rest of the story. Until tomorrow smile, I’m sure you’ll get some smiles back.
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