[uptime]

> The reason why grafting is necessary is that in most cases the trees grown from the seeds produced by a tree with big and sweet fruits may have small and sour fruits.

This. Any apples grown for consumption are from grafts. Apple trees grown from seed are wild or experimental to try to find a new graft, or to be the graft base. I was amazed when I heard that planting a Honeycrisp seed would not get you more Honeycrisps in your yard. Cloning only!

[ratmice]

I've read a similar thing about pink dogwood, where growing a seedling from it will only have a small chance of being another pink dogwood, more likely than not producing a white one. Because of that they are typically cloned.

[roughly]

A follow-on fun fact is that the American legend of Johnny Appleseed makes no sense in this light if you assume the apples were for eating. They’re fine for making Applejack, though.