That's a good reminder! I've never run across any "bad" apple, really. But I have come across a lot of apples that struggle with disease. Disease resistance has become a big factor in my choice of what apples I keep growing - and one that Johnny didn't have to deal with. Apples did so well in those early days of European settlement, because the apple diseases just weren't here --- yet. They eventually got here and then there was some real hardship, because folks weren't prepared.
Johnny was Masanobu Fukuoka kind of guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka
Appletrees grown from seed are naturally more resistant and adaptive than the clone combos. A teacher in the gardening school where I hanged around for a while was also very much into seed growing appletrees.
PS: If you are into a very old/very new age trick, they say that if you hold the seed for a while in your mouth befofe planting, the fruits of the plant friend will share the information field of your body and become personally designed health food. Hereabouts the traditional way to sow e.g. rye and barley was to spit it. :)
I guess he was, at that!