the stubborn, possibly miraculous seedling that kept coming up in between the rows of Jesse Hiatt’s orchard in Peru, Iowa, mowing after mowing, until the Quaker farmer decided it must be a sign. So he let the little tree live and fruit, only to discover its apples were far and away the best he’d ever tasted. Hiatt named it the Hawkeye and in 1893 mailed four of them off to a contest at the Stark Brothers Nurseries in Louisiana, Missouri, where C. M. Stark awarded the Hawkeye first prize and a shiny new name: the Delicious. (Stark, a born marketer, had been carrying that name on a slip of paper
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