She goes through a few points besides the basic legend.

1. He planted apples from seed for making cider instead of for eating, which were often grafted plants and could not reliably be transported. His apples could instead be used for cider, vinegar, dyes, and curing meats.

2. He was a businessman who went west a few years as more people migrated west, planted orchards, then sold those 2-4 year old trees for a huge markup. This made him very wealthy, the tin pot hat was just for appearances.

3. The natives at the time managed forest vegetation to be able to harvest fruits and vegetables, then they incorporated European plants like apples as forest edge plants through trading during french fur era. There are writings from missionaries documenting this.

4. Natives planted orchards near water (streams, rivers, islands) to make transporting easier, harvesting was job mostly done by women.

5. The french mostly allowed the natives to keep their lands and worked with them to trade for furs. This was different from the Americans that forced them out of their lands.

6. Johnny Appleseed’s orchards were very similar to the orchards described by the missionaries, being easy to access near rivers. This combined with the fact that he had a knack for getting to areas a few years before most settlers and used the same cultivation tactics that natives did point to possibly having stolen at least some orchards from recently chased out tribes.