Fruit

Fruits are items that grow on trees in the town in all titles. When the player first creates their town, there is only one type of fruit tree in it, and therefore only one type of fruit. This fruit, either an apple, cherry, peach, pear or orange, is called the "native fruit", and is considered common by the town's inhabitants. Tom Nook will buy each native fruit for only one hundred Bells. However, non-native fruits sell for 500 Bells per fruit. Any fruit can be grown in the town, and therefore it is to the players' advantages to share their native fruit with one another and obtain at least one other type of fruit, grow fruit trees using this other type of fruit, and then sell the fruit produced on the tree to Tom Nook for 500 Bells each. However, fruit can also be received as a gift from villagers in any animal crossing game or as a gift from Mom in. If you send a villager a one line letter with a piece of native fruit there is a good chance that they will send you a piece of foreign fruit in return. In, players can acquire non-native fruit by traveling to a town where they grow, and can mail fruit to players in other towns. Fruit can also be eaten by the player (except coconuts), but there is no benefit for doing so. Each fruit tree, if it grows, will continuously grow 3 fruit every 3 days.

Apples resemble the fruit that Yoshi eats in Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. Wii while peaches resemble the peaches that sometimes appear at the level end on Super Princess Peach.

To get non-native fruit in City Folk without the need for Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, the player must send a letter to a resident of their town with the contents saying "How are you?" with a fruit attached, native or not. A couple days later, a letter with a present attached will be received, containing a fruit, native or non-native, or a shirt. The same thing works with sick neighbors, with "Get well soon!" being on the letter.

Coconuts
Coconuts are a non-native fruit in every town. They grow into palm trees that only live close to the shore and grow two coconuts. In, and , coconuts must be obtained by traveling to the island and sell for 300 Bells, instead of 500. In Wild World and City Folk, coconuts simply drift ashore but are worth the same 500 Bells.

Growing fruit trees
The player can grow a fruit tree by burying a piece of fruit in the dirt with one open square on each side of the tree (a tree will not grow if the fruit is planted right up next to a house, for example). Coconut trees function differently, however: the coconut must be buried on the shoreline of the beach, but not in the sand itself.

If the tree grows, it will bear fruit in about five days. The player can shake the fruit off of the trees by walking up to a fruit tree with no items in their hand and pressing the 'A' button. The fruit will then fall onto any open spaces of ground, and can be picked up. The tree will then replenish its fruit in three days.

Cedars and oak trees do not bear fruit. They can be bought at Tom Nook's Store, and are not the same as fruit trees, even if they look exactly the same. Buying these is the only way to plant them.

List of Fruit
* - Fruit which cannot appear as the native fruit in a player's town.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf additions
Official videos have showcased new fruit coming to the game. Speculation is that the new fruits include lemon, mango, durian, persimmon, and bananas, some of which appear on the new island.

Hybrid-like trees, showing two types of fruits growing on a single tree, also hint at the possibility of tree hybridization in the game.