trange Apple Tree

aron Von Lodge was the head of a small country known as Lilliland near Switzerland. The time was the early 1900s.

Lilliland’s apple strudel was one of the finest pastries in all of Europe. The Baron’s castle had some of the finest apple orchards in the area. The apples were carefully picked when they were fully ripe and ready for the pastry chefs.

The people who carefully picked the apples were very superstitious in one respect. There were four apple trees that were different from all the others in the orchard. One was in the north corner, one in the south corner, one in the east corner, and the fourth in the west corner. But they all had two different kinds of apples on them. They had both red and yellow apples growing on the same tree. The pickers refused to pick these apples because they believed that they were cursed by the witches.

The Baron just went along with this and let those four apple trees alone. But more recently, he asked his chief advisor, Professor Hamblin, to investigate this strange witches curse.

The head gardener for the apple orchards met with the Professor. The gardener said that an oriental man who was formerly in charge of the orchard did something to the apple trees.

The Professor decided to send a letter to the new home of the oriental gardener to ask about the four apple trees. In a few weeks he received this reply. One summer one of the yellow apple trees was hit by a bolt of lightning and broke off four branches. The gardener decided to graft the four branches onto four of the red apple trees.

The Professor told the Baron about the successful grafting experiment by the previous gardener.

When the apple pickers were told of the grafting, the witches curse quickly vanished. Now those four-corner trees help to produce the famous Lilliland strudel that everyone loves so much.