One autumn day in Juche 49 (1960) officials went to an orchard in Songhwa County, South Hwanghae Province and asked its management some fruit trees to be transplanted in the garden of President Kim Il Sung’s house. The workers of the orchard provided them with 14 sturdy and good-looking apple trees by digging them up with sincerity.
Officials who returned to Pyongyang began to plant them in the garden. At that time Kim Il Sung happened to see them planting the trees of such good species and asked where they had got them.
Listening to their reply that they took them from an orchard in Songhwa County, he got very angry about their thoughtless behaviour and urged them to stop their work at once. He then asked them to promptly carry them back to the orchard.
He gave a talking to the officials: The apple trees in the orchard are a valuable asset of our people to be handed down to the coming generation. How can you dig out the asset permeated with the sweat of our people? We can purchase saplings to plant here, can’t we?
As a result, those apple trees were replanted in their original places and the workers of the orchard tended them with much care keeping deep in mind his lofty idea.
