Some say get the Dwarf version of the tree, it grows and matures faster so you get fruit, then you have time for the full sized ones to get going as well.
Prepping is for the long haul, so Yes.

Better yet, learn to graft fruit tree scions to dwarf rootstock. You save a ton of money and learn to propagate your own orchards.

Dwarf fruit trees often start to fruit within 5 years, as opposed to 10-15 with plain fruit seed.

Adding to Runswithscissors comments.... Back roads of southern Ont have all kinds of wild apples growing. Look for small ones to "rescue" and use them as root stock for your grafts. Do lots if possible as the learning curve may kill a few
Good Luck!!

I heard grafted cuttings can be producing the next year.

I tried a lot of the wild ones, not all are good. Look for them when ripe and try the fruit. I found a great wild apple growing and want to move it.
I plan to try to graft some cuttings to a hawthorn(never done this before but I have nothing to loose) and I'll also try to bend a branch down to the ground, stake it down and bury a foot or so and see if it takes root over the 2013 year. Then sever the thing from the main branch and transplant it this fall or next spring.

Any experts out there have advice on this?

I make alot of new pants the extra rooting method.. i have included how i do it for with photots, i have never had good uck with the fal, and i almost always have good uck doing it in the spring, i don't let them produce fruit on the first year even if they want to..

provided you do have a few bushes in the garden already, take a good low branch, and pin it to the ground along the middle of the branch, leaving the tops of the branch still up in the air and growing, can put a light covering of dirt on top and forget about it for the rest of the year, next spring early, before the leaves come out, but the buds are started, you can find your peices and you cut them off just on the mother plant side of where it goes into the ground, and you get something like this!

We are thrilled to have five new plants done this way, that we added to our Current Bush Row, We only bought two bushes and we currently have a dozon at this time. So then you take your rooted stock and dig it in on the length side, with the budding top of the branch at the top and backfilled, tamped and water in.

And then you are left with this on the top, that is already starting to bud out..and I will leave it as is for the rest of the year, but this fall, I will prune off the two bottom branch outs on the right hand side, and then the year after, I will prune to help shape it as it grows but already you can see that’s got a good head start just the way it is.

Last but not least, I will cover the area two around the plant with wood chips at least eight inches thick to mulch it down. This little guy will most likely not produce much if anything this year but it will grow and grow some more and if its like the other’s I have done, it will have its first crop by next year.

Thanks Farmgal. I think I'm on the right track.

Those wild apples aren't so wild as people think. Many of them are Mac's that are just really in bad need of a good pruning. Could even be some other cultivar of an orchard fruit from back in a day when somebody was on the land. The really wild ones aren't worth harvesting, but make really good pollinators for others. For the really wild trees, I'd temp fence some pigs under it and let them clean up after it 🙂

Watch your wild trees. We have a wild pear tree and it's super sour. The goats froth at the mouth when they eat the fruit. Nobody's died, but then no human has eaten from the tree either. Ughh.... 😉