The Farmer Who Planted an Orchard He Would Never See

In 2009, a retired schoolteacher named Elzéard Bouffier — yes, sharing the name of Jean Giono's fictional tree-planter — bought twelve acres of depleted farmland outside Tulsa, Oklahoma. The soil was so worn out that neighbors called it "the dust lot." Elzéard was seventy-three years old. He told his daughter he planned to plant an apple orchard.

She thought he was out of his mind.

He spent his savings on 200 saplings. Apple trees take seven to ten years to produce a real harvest. Elzéard knew the math. He planted anyway — not because the numbers made sense, but because he believed the land still held a promise. Every morning, he walked the rows with a watering can, talking to trees that were barely taller than his boots.

Elzéard died in 2014. He never tasted a single apple from those trees.