The first apple tree,
planted for you

Why did a doctor plant apple trees?

1. 1897Korea was enduring a severe famine. In December, medical missionary Dr. Woodbridge O. Johnson arrived in Daegu and began caring for patients at Jejungwon, the forerunner of today's Dongsan Hospital.
2. 1899He ordered apple trees from Missouri. Carried by train, steamship, ferry to the Waegwan in Busan, riverboat and cart, the saplings reached Daegu two to three months later. Seventy-two trees of three varieties were planted on Cheongna Hill, and their fruit, which kept for months, was shared with patients.
3. 1907In December 1900, following Dr. Johnson, missionary James E. Adams brought in a large shipment of apple cuttings from Kansas, which were planted on Dongsan Hill. Sinmyeong Girls' School, officially accredited in 1907, grew in enrollment, and its students learned to graft apple trees onto native neunggeum crabapple trees. During school holidays they went home to their villages and grafted apple trees, and so the trees that began on Cheongna Hill spread across Gyeongbuk.
4. 1916In 1910 a mission station was founded in Andong, and Dr. Johnson and missionary John Crothers brought apple grafting there. In cool Andong, apples kept long after the harvest. In October 1916, Crothers planted 100 apple trees in the field of Nokjeon Church. This was the beginning of Andong apples. In 1929, 80 more trees were planted in Sinpyeong-ri, Nokjeon-myeon.
5. 2026Korpple — Korea plus Apple — rescues apples that fall in storms and hail and turns the whole fruit, peel and all, into a liquid apple stick.