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diff --git a/4066-h/4066-h.htm b/4066-h/4066-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd6feb4 --- /dev/null +++ b/4066-h/4066-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1770 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wild Apples, by Henry David Thoreau</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wild Apples, by Henry David Thoreau</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Wild Apples</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry David Thoreau</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 1, 2001 [eBook #4066]<br /> +[Most recently updated: February 10, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD APPLES ***</div> + +<h1>Wild Apples</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Henry David Thoreau</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">THE HISTORY OF THE APPLE-TREE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">THE WILD APPLE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">THE CRAB</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">HOW THE WILD APPLE GROWS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">THE FRUIT, AND ITS FLAVOR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">THEIR BEAUTY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">THE NAMING OF THEM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">THE LAST GLEANING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">THE “FROZEN-THAWED” APPLE</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>THE HISTORY OF THE APPLE-TREE</h2> + +<p> +It is remarkable how closely the history of the Apple-tree is connected with +that of man. The geologist tells us that the order of the <i>Rosaceæ</i>, which +includes the Apple, also the true Grasses, and the <i>Labiatæ</i>, or Mints, +were introduced only a short time previous to the appearance of man on the +globe. +</p> + +<p> +It appears that apples made a part of the food of that unknown primitive people +whose traces have lately been found at the bottom of the Swiss lakes, supposed +to be older than the foundation of Rome, so old that they had no metallic +implements. An entire black and shrivelled Crab-Apple has been recovered from +their stores. +</p> + +<p> +Tacitus says of the ancient Germans that they satisfied their hunger with wild +apples, among other things. +</p> + +<p> +Niebuhr<a href="#fn1" name="fnref1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> observes that “the +words for a house, a field, a plough, ploughing, wine, oil, milk, sheep, +apples, and others relating to agriculture and the gentler ways of life, agree +in Latin and Greek, while the Latin words for all objects pertaining to war or +the chase are utterly alien from the Greek.” Thus the apple-tree may be +considered a symbol of peace no less than the olive. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn1"></a> <a href="#fnref1">[1]</a> +A German historical critic of ancient life. +</p> + +<p> +The apple was early so important, and so generally distributed, that its name +traced to its root in many languages signifies fruit in general. +Μῆλον (Mēlon), in Greek, means an apple, also the +fruit of other trees, also a sheep and any cattle, and finally riches in +general. +</p> + +<p> +The apple-tree has been celebrated by the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and +Scandinavians. Some have thought that the first human pair were tempted by its +fruit. Goddesses are fabled to have contended for it, dragons were set to watch +it, and heroes were employed to pluck it.<a href="#fn2" name="fnref2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn2"></a> <a href="#fnref2">[2]</a> +The Greek myths especially referred to are The Choice of Paris and The Apples +of the Hesperides. +</p> + +<p> +The tree is mentioned in at least three places in the Old Testament, and its +fruit in two or three more. Solomon sings, “As the apple-tree among the +trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.” And again, +“Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples.” The noblest part of +man’s noblest feature is named from this fruit, “the apple of the +eye.” +</p> + +<p> +The apple-tree is also mentioned by Homer and Herodotus. Ulysses saw in the +glorious garden of Alcinous “pears and pomegranates and apple-trees +bearing beautiful fruit.” And according to Homer, apples were among the +fruits which Tantalus could not pluck, the wind ever blowing their boughs away +from him. Theophrastus knew and described the apple-tree as a botanist. +</p> + +<p> +According to the prose Edda,<a href="#fn3" name="fnref3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> +“Iduna keeps in a box the apples which the gods, when they feel old age +approaching, have only to taste of to become young again. It is in this manner +that they will be kept in renovated youth until Ragnarök” (or the +destruction of the Gods). +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn3"></a> <a href="#fnref3">[3]</a> +The stories of the early Scandinavians. +</p> + +<p> +I learn from Loudon<a href="#fn4" name="fnref4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> that +“the ancient Welsh bards were rewarded for excelling in song by the token +of the apple-spray;” and “in the Highlands of Scotland the +apple-tree is the badge of the clan Lamont.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn4"></a> <a href="#fnref4">[4]</a> +An English authority on the culture of orchards and gardens. +</p> + +<p> +The apple-tree belongs chiefly to the northern temperate zone. Loudon says, +that “it grows spontaneously in every part of Europe except the frigid +zone, and throughout Western Asia, China and Japan.” We have also two or +three varieties of the apple indigenous in North America. The cultivated +apple-tree was first introduced into this country by the earliest settlers, and +is thought to do as well or better here than anywhere else. Probably some of +the varieties which are now cultivated were first introduced into Britain by +the Romans. +</p> + +<p> +Pliny, adopting the distinction of Theophrastus, says, “Of trees there +are some which are altogether wild, some more civilized.” Theophrastus +includes the apple among the last; and, indeed, it is in this sense the most +civilized of all trees. It is as harmless as a dove, as beautiful as a rose, +and as valuable as flocks and herds. It has been longer cultivated than any +other, and so is more humanized; and who knows but, like the dog, it will at +length be no longer traceable to its wild original? It migrates with man, like +the dog and horse and cow; first, perchance, from Greece to Italy, thence to +England, thence to America; and our Western emigrant is still marching steadily +toward the setting sun with the seeds of the apple in his pocket, or perhaps a +few young trees strapped to his load. At least a million apple-trees are thus +set farther westward this year than any cultivated ones grew last year. +Consider how the Blossom-Week, like the Sabbath, is thus annually spreading +over the prairies; for when man migrates he carries with him not only his +birds, quadrupeds, insects, vegetables, and his very sward, but his orchard +also. +</p> + +<p> +The leaves and tender twigs are an agreeable food to many domestic animals, as +the cow, horse, sheep, and goat; and the fruit is sought after by the first, as +well as by the hog. Thus there appears to have existed a natural alliance +between these animals and this tree from the first. “The fruit of the +Crab in the forests of France” is said to be “a great resource for +the wild boar.” +</p> + +<p> +Not only the Indian, but many indigenous insects, birds, and quadrupeds, +welcomed the apple-tree to these shores. The tent-caterpillar saddled her eggs +on the very first twig that was formed, and it has since shared her affections +with the wild cherry; and the canker-worm also in a measure abandoned the elm +to feed on it. As it grew apace, the bluebird, robin, cherry-bird, king-bird, +and many more, came with haste and built their nests and warbled in its boughs, +and so became orchard-birds, and multiplied more than ever. It was an era in +the history of their race. The downy woodpecker found such a savory morsel +under its bark, that he perforated it in a ring quite round the tree before he +left it,—a thing which he had never done before, to my knowledge. It did +not take the partridge long to find out how sweet its buds were, and every +winter eve she flew, and still flies, from the wood, to pluck them, much to the +farmer’s sorrow. The rabbit, too, was not slow to learn the taste of its +twigs and bark; and when the fruit was ripe, the squirrel half-rolled, +half-carried it to his hole; and even the musquash crept up the bank from the +brook at evening, and greedily devoured it, until he had worn a path in the +grass there; and when it was frozen and thawed, the crow and the jay were glad +to taste it occasionally. The owl crept into the first apple-tree that became +hollow, and fairly hooted with delight, finding it just the place for him; so, +settling down into it, he has remained there ever since. +</p> + +<p> +My theme being the Wild Apple, I will merely glance at some of the seasons in +the annual growth of the cultivated apple, and pass on to my special province. +</p> + +<p> +The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most beautiful of any tree, so copious +and so delicious to both sight and scent. The walker is frequently tempted to +turn and linger near some more than usually handsome one, whose blossoms are +two thirds expanded. How superior it is in these respects to the pear, whose +blossoms are neither colored nor fragrant! +</p> + +<p> +By the middle of July, green apples are so large as to remind us of coddling, +and of the autumn. The sward is commonly strewed with little ones which fall +still-born, as it were,—Nature thus thinning them for us. The Roman +writer Palladius said: “If apples are inclined to fall before their time, +a stone placed in a split root will retain them.” Some such notion, still +surviving, may account for some of the stones which we see placed to be +overgrown in the forks of trees. They have a saying in Suffolk, England,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“At Michaelmas time, or a little before,<br/> +Half an apple goes to the core.” +</p> + +<p> +Early apples begin to be ripe about the first of August; but I think that none +of them are so good to eat as some to smell. One is worth more to scent your +handkerchief with than any perfume which they sell in the shops. The fragrance +of some fruits is not to be forgotten, along with that of flowers. Some gnarly +apple which I pick up in the road reminds me by its fragrance of all the wealth +of Pomona,<a href="#fn5" name="fnref5"><sup>[5]</sup></a>—carrying me +forward to those days when they will be collected in golden and ruddy heaps in +the orchards and about the cider-mills. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn5"></a> <a href="#fnref5">[5]</a> +The Roman goddess of fruit and fruit-trees. +</p> + +<p> +A week or two later, as you are going by orchards or gardens, especially in the +evenings, you pass through a little region possessed by the fragrance of ripe +apples, and thus enjoy them without price, and without robbing anybody. +</p> + +<p> +There is thus about all natural products a certain volatile and ethereal +quality which represents their highest value, and which cannot be vulgarized, +or bought and sold. No mortal has ever enjoyed the perfect flavor of any fruit, +and only the godlike among men begin to taste its ambrosial qualities. For +nectar and ambrosia are only those fine flavors of every earthly fruit which +our coarse palates fail to perceive,—just as we occupy the heaven of the +gods without knowing it. When I see a particularly mean man carrying a load of +fair and fragrant early apples to market, I seem to see a contest going on +between him and his horse, on the one side, and the apples on the other, and, +to my mind, the apples always gain it. Pliny says that apples are the heaviest +of all things, and that the oxen begin to sweat at the mere sight of a load of +them. Our driver begins to lose his load the moment he tries to transport them +to where they do not belong, that is, to any but the most beautiful. Though he +gets out from time to time, and feels of them, and thinks they are all there, I +see the stream of their evanescent and celestial qualities going to heaven from +his cart, while the pulp and skin and core only are going to market. They are +not apples, but pomace. Are not these still Iduna’s apples, the taste of +which keeps the gods forever young? and think you that they will let Loki or +Thjassi carry them off to Jötunheim,<a href="#fn6" name="fnref6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> +while they grow wrinkled and gray? No, for Ragnarök, or the destruction of the +gods, is not yet. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn6"></a> <a href="#fnref6">[6]</a> +Jötunheim (<i>Ye</i>(r)<i>t′-un-hime</i>) in Scandinavian mythology was +the home of the Jotun or Giants. Loki was a descendant of the gods, and a +companion of the Giants. Thjassi (<i>Tee-assy</i>) was a giant. +</p> + +<p> +There is another thinning of the fruit, commonly near the end of August or in +September, when the ground is strewn with windfalls; and this happens +especially when high winds occur after rain. In some orchards you may see fully +three quarters of the whole crop on the ground, lying in a circular form +beneath the trees, yet hard and green,—or, if it is a hillside, rolled +far down the hill. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. All +the country over, people are busy picking up the windfalls, and this will make +them cheap for early apple-pies. +</p> + +<p> +In October, the leaves falling, the apples are more distinct on the trees. I +saw one year in a neighboring town some trees fuller of fruit than I remember +to have ever seen before, small yellow apples hanging over the road. The +branches were gracefully drooping with their weight, like a barberry-bush, so +that the whole tree acquired a new character. Even the topmost branches, +instead of standing erect, spread and drooped in all directions; and there were +so many poles supporting the lower ones, that they looked like pictures of +banian-trees. As an old English manuscript says, “The mo appelen the tree +bereth the more sche boweth to the folk.” +</p> + +<p> +Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits. Let the most beautiful or the +swiftest have it. That should be the “going” price of apples. +</p> + +<p> +Between the fifth and twentieth of October I see the barrels lie under the +trees. And perhaps I talk with one who is selecting some choice barrels to +fulfil an order. He turns a specked one over many times before he leaves it +out. If I were to tell what is passing in my mind, I should say that every one +was specked which he had handled; for he rubs off all the bloom, and those +fugacious ethereal qualities leave it. Cool evenings prompt the farmers to make +haste, and at length I see only the ladders here and there left leaning against +the trees. +</p> + +<p> +It would be well if we accepted these gifts with more joy and gratitude, and +did not think it enough simply to put a fresh load of compost about the tree. +Some old English customs are suggestive at least. I find them described chiefly +in Brand’s “Popular Antiquities.” It appears that “on +Christmas eve the farmers and their men in Devonshire take a large bowl of +cider, with a toast in it, and carrying it in state to the orchard, they salute +the apple-trees with much ceremony, in order to make them bear well the next +season.” This salutation consists in “throwing some of the cider +about the roots of the tree, placing bits of the toast on the branches,” +and then, “encircling one of the best bearing trees in the orchard, they +drink the following toast three several times:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + “‘Here’s to thee, old apple-tree,<br/> +Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,<br/> +And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!<br/> + Hats-full! caps-full!<br/> + Bushel, bushel, sacks-full!<br/> + And my pockets full, too! Hurra!’” +</p> + +<p> +Also what was called “apple-howling” used to be practised in +various counties of England on New-Year’s eve. A troop of boys visited +the different orchards, and, encircling the apple-trees, repeated the following +words:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Stand fast, root! bear well, top!<br/> +Pray God send us a good howling crop:<br/> +Every twig, apples big;<br/> +Every bow, apples enow!” +</p> + +<p> +“They then shout in chorus, one of the boys accompanying them on a +cow’s horn. During this ceremony they rap the trees with their +sticks.” This is called “wassailing” the trees, and is +thought by some to be “a relic of the heathen sacrifice to Pomona.” +</p> + +<p> +Herrick sings,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Wassaile the trees that they may beare<br/> +You many a plum and many a peare;<br/> +For more or less fruits they will bring<br/> +As you so give them wassailing.” +</p> + +<p> +Our poets have as yet a better right to sing of cider than of wine; but it +behooves them to sing better than English Phillips did, else they will do no +credit to their Muse. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>THE WILD APPLE</h2> + +<p> +So much for the more civilized apple-trees (<i>urbaniores</i>, as Pliny calls +them). I love better to go through the old orchards of ungrafted apple-trees, +at whatever season of the year,—so irregularly planted: sometimes two +trees standing close together; and the rows so devious that you would think +that they not only had grown while the owner was sleeping, but had been set out +by him in a somnambulic state. The rows of grafted fruit will never tempt me to +wander amid them like these. But I now, alas, speak rather from memory than +from any recent experience, such ravages have been made! +</p> + +<p> +Some soils, like a rocky tract called the Easterbrooks Country in my +neighborhood, are so suited to the apple, that it will grow faster in them +without any care, or if only the ground is broken up once a year, than it will +in many places with any amount of care. The owners of this tract allow that the +soil is excellent for fruit, but they say that it is so rocky that they have +not patience to plough it, and that, together with the distance, is the reason +why it is not cultivated. There are, or were recently, extensive orchards there +standing without order. Nay, they spring up wild and bear well there in the +midst of pines, birches, maples, and oaks. I am often surprised to see rising +amid these trees the rounded tops of apple-trees glowing with red or yellow +fruit, in harmony with the autumnal tints of the forest. +</p> + +<p> +Going up the side of a cliff about the first of November, I saw a vigorous +young apple-tree, which, planted by birds or cows, had shot up amid the rocks +and open woods there, and had now much fruit on it, uninjured by the frosts, +when all cultivated apples were gathered. It was a rank wild growth, with many +green leaves on it still, and made an impression of thorniness. The fruit was +hard and green, but looked as if it would be palatable in the winter. Some was +dangling on the twigs, but more half-buried in the wet leaves under the tree, +or rolled far down the hill amid the rocks. The owner knows nothing of it. The +day was not observed when it first blossomed, nor when it first bore fruit, +unless by the chickadee. There was no dancing on the green beneath it in its +honor, and now there is no hand to pluck its fruit,—which is only gnawed +by squirrels, as I perceive. It has done double duty,—not only borne this +crop, but each twig has grown a foot into the air. And this is <i>such</i> +fruit! bigger than many berries, we must admit, and carried home will be sound +and palatable next spring. What care I for Iduna’s apples so long as I +can get these? +</p> + +<p> +When I go by this shrub thus late and hardy, and see its dangling fruit, I +respect the tree, and I am grateful for Nature’s bounty, even though I +cannot eat it. Here on this rugged and woody hillside has grown an apple-tree, +not planted by man, no relic of a former orchard, but a natural growth, like +the pines and oaks. Most fruits which we prize and use depend entirely on our +care. Corn and grain, potatoes, peaches, melons, etc., depend altogether on our +planting; but the apple emulates man’s independence and enterprise. It is +not simply carried, as I have said, but, like him, to some extent, it has +migrated to this New World, and is even, here and there, making its way amid +the aboriginal trees; just as the ox and dog and horse sometimes run wild and +maintain themselves. +</p> + +<p> +Even the sourest and crabbedest apple, growing in the most unfavorable +position, suggests such thoughts as these, it is so noble a fruit. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>THE CRAB</h2> + +<p> +Nevertheless, <i>our</i> wild apple is wild only like myself, perchance, who +belong not to the aboriginal race here, but have strayed into the woods from +the cultivated stock. Wilder still, as I have said, there grows elsewhere in +this country a native and aboriginal Crab-Apple, “whose nature has not +yet been modified by cultivation.” It is found from Western New York to +Minnesota and southward. Michaux<a href="#fn7" name="fnref7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> +says that its ordinary height “is fifteen or eighteen feet, but it is +sometimes found twenty-five or thirty feet high,” and that the large ones +“exactly resemble the common apple-tree.” “The flowers are +white mingled with rose-color, and are collected in corymbs.” They are +remarkable for their delicious odor. The fruit, according to him, is about an +inch and a half in diameter, and is intensely acid. Yet they make fine +sweet-meats, and also cider of them. He concludes, that “if, on being +cultivated, it does not yield new and palatable varieties, it will at least be +celebrated for the beauty of its flowers, and for the sweetness of its +perfume.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn7"></a> <a href="#fnref7">[7]</a> +Pronounced <i>mee-shō;</i> a French botanist and traveller. +</p> + +<p> +I never saw the Crab-Apple till May, 1861. I had heard of it through Michaux, +but more modern botanists, so far as I know, have not treated it as of any +peculiar importance. Thus it was a half-fabulous tree to me. I contemplated a +pilgrimage to the “Glades,” a portion of Pennsylvania, where it was +said to grow to perfection. I thought of sending to a nursery for it, but +doubted if they had it, or would distinguish it from European varieties. At +last I had occasion to go to Minnesota, and on entering Michigan I began to +notice from the cars a tree with handsome rose-colored flowers. At first I +thought it some variety of thorn; but it was not long before the truth flashed +on me, that this was my long-sought Crab-Apple. It was the prevailing flowering +shrub or tree to be seen from the cars at that season of the year,—about +the middle of May. But the cars never stopped before one, and so I was launched +on the bosom of the Mississippi without having touched one, experiencing the +fate of Tantalus. On arriving at St. Anthony’s Falls, I was sorry to be +told that I was too far north for the Crab-Apple. Nevertheless I succeeded in +finding it about eight miles west of the Falls; touched it and smelled it, and +secured a lingering corymb of flowers for my herbarium. This must have been +near its northern limit. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>HOW THE WILD APPLE GROWS</h2> + +<p> +But though these are indigenous, like the Indians, I doubt whether they are any +hardier than those back-woodsmen among the apple-trees, which, though descended +from cultivated stocks, plant themselves in distant fields and forests, where +the soil is favorable to them. I know of no trees which have more difficulties +to contend with, and which more sturdily resist their foes. These are the ones +whose story we have to tell. It oftentimes reads thus:— +</p> + +<p> +Near the beginning of May, we notice little thickets of apple-trees just +springing up in the pastures where cattle have been,—as the rocky ones of +our Easter-brooks Country, or the top of Nobscot Hill in Sudbury. One or two of +these perhaps survive the drought and other accidents,—their very +birthplace defending them against the encroaching grass and some other dangers, +at first. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +In two years’ time ’t had thus<br/> + Reached the level of the rocks,<br/> +Admired the stretching world,<br/> + Nor feared the wandering flocks.<br/> +<br/> +But at this tender age<br/> + Its sufferings began:<br/> +There came a browsing ox<br/> + And cut it down a span. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +This time, perhaps, the ox does not notice it amid the grass; but the next +year, when it has grown more stout, he recognizes it for a fellow-emigrant from +the old country, the flavor of whose leaves and twigs he well knows; and though +at first he pauses to welcome it, and express his surprise, and gets for +answer, “The same cause that brought you here brought me,” he +nevertheless browses it again, reflecting, it may be, that he has some title to +it. +</p> + +<p> +Thus cut down annually, it does not despair; but, putting forth two short twigs +for every one cut off, it spreads out low along the ground in the hollows or +between the rocks, growing more stout and scrubby, until it forms, not a tree +as yet, but a little pyramidal, stiff, twiggy mass, almost as solid and +impenetrable as a rock. Some of the densest and most impenetrable clumps of +bushes that I have ever seen, as well, on account of the closeness and +stubbornness of their branches as of their thorns, have been these wild-apple +scrubs. They are more like the scrubby fir and black spruce on which you stand, +and sometimes walk, on the tops of mountains, where cold is the demon they +contend with, than anything else. No wonder they are prompted to grow thorns at +last, to defend themselves against such foes. In their thorniness, however, +there is no malice, only some malic acid. +</p> + +<p> +The rocky pastures of the tract I have referred to—for they maintain +their ground best in a rocky field—are thickly sprinkled with these +little tufts, reminding you often of some rigid gray mosses or lichens, and you +see thousands of little trees just springing up between them, with the seed +still attached to them. +</p> + +<p> +Being regularly clipped all around each year by the cows, as a hedge with +shears, they are often of a perfect conical or pyramidal form, from one to four +feet high, and more or less sharp, as if trimmed by the gardener’s art. +In the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs they make fine dark shadows when +the sun is low. They are also an excellent covert from hawks for many small +birds that roost and build in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night, and I +have seen three robins’ nests in one which was six feet in diameter. +</p> + +<p> +No doubt many of these are already old trees, if you reckon from the day they +were planted, but infants still when you consider their development and the +long life before them. I counted the annual rings of some which were just one +foot high, and as wide as high, and found that they were about twelve years +old, but quite sound and thrifty! They were so low that they were unnoticed by +the walker, while many of their contemporaries from the nurseries were already +bearing considerable crops. But what you gain in time is perhaps in this case, +too, lost in power,—that is, in the vigor of the tree. This is their +pyramidal state. +</p> + +<p> +The cows continue to browse them thus for twenty years or more, keeping them +down and compelling them to spread, until at last they are so broad that they +become their own fence, when some interior shoot, which their foes cannot +reach, darts upward with joy: for it has not forgotten its high calling, and +bears its own peculiar fruit in triumph. +</p> + +<p> +Such are the tactics by which it finally defeats its bovine foes. Now, if you +have watched the progress of a particular shrub, you will see that it is no +longer a simple pyramid or cone, but out of its apex there rises a sprig or +two, growing more lustily perchance than an orchard-tree, since the plant now +devotes the whole of its repressed energy to these upright parts. In a short +time these become a small tree, an inverted pyramid resting on the apex of the +other, so that the whole has now the form of a vast hour-glass. The spreading +bottom, having served its purpose, finally disappears, and the generous tree +permits the now harmless cows to come in and stand in its shade, and rub +against and redden its trunk, which has grown in spite of them, and even to +taste a part of its fruit, and so disperse the seed. +</p> + +<p> +Thus the cows create their own shade and food; and the tree, its hour-glass +being inverted, lives a second life, as it were. +</p> + +<p> +It is an important question with some nowadays, whether you should trim young +apple-trees as high as your nose or as high as your eyes. The ox trims them up +as high as he can reach, and that is about the right height, I think. +</p> + +<p> +In spite of wandering kine and other adverse circumstance, that despised shrub, +valued only by small birds as a covert and shelter from hawks, has its +blossom-week at last, and in course of time its harvest, sincere, though small. +</p> + +<p> +By the end of some October, when its leaves have fallen, I frequently see such +a central sprig, whose progress I have watched, when I thought it had forgotten +its destiny, as I had, bearing its first crop of small green or yellow or rosy +fruit, which the cows cannot get at over the bushy and thorny hedge which +surrounds it; and I make haste to taste the new and undescribed variety. We +have all heard of the numerous varieties of fruit invented by Van Mons<a +href="#fn8" name="fnref8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> and Knight.<a href="#fn9" +name="fnref9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> This is the system of Van Cow, and she has +invented far more and more memorable varieties than both of them. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn8"></a> <a href="#fnref8">[8]</a> +A Belgian chemist and horticulturist. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn9"></a> <a href="#fnref9">[9]</a> +An English vegetable physiologist. +</p> + +<p> +Through what hardships it may attain to bear a sweet fruit! Though somewhat +small, it may prove equal, if not superior, in flavor to that which has grown +in a garden,—will perchance be all the sweeter and more palatable for the +very difficulties it has had to contend with. Who knows but this chance wild +fruit, planted by a cow or a bird on some remote and rocky hillside, where it +is as yet unobserved by man, may be the choicest of all its kind, and foreign +potentates shall hear of it, and royal societies seek to propagate it, though +the virtues of the perhaps truly crabbed owner of the soil may never be heard +of,—at least, beyond the limits of his village? It was thus the Porter +and the Baldwin grew. +</p> + +<p> +Every wild-apple shrub excites our expectation thus, somewhat as every wild +child. It is, perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson to man! So are human +beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they +suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate; and only the most persistent +and strongest genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender scion upward +at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth. Poets and +philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast +the hosts of unoriginal men. +</p> + +<p> +Such is always the pursuit of knowledge. The celestial fruits, the golden +apples of the Hesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred-headed dragon which +never sleeps, so that it is an herculean labor to pluck them. +</p> + +<p> +This is one and the most remarkable way in which the wild apple is propagated; +but commonly it springs up at wide intervals in woods and swamps, and by the +sides of roads, as the soil may suit it, and grows with comparative rapidity. +Those which grow in dense woods are very tall and slender. I frequently pluck +from these trees a perfectly mild and tamed fruit. As Palladius says, +“And the ground is strewn with the fruit of an unbidden +apple-tree.” +</p> + +<p> +It is an old notion, that, if these wild trees do not bear a valuable fruit of +their own, they are the best stocks by which to transmit to posterity the most +highly prized qualities of others. However, I am not in search of stocks, but +the wild fruit itself, whose fierce gust has suffered no +“inteneration.” It is not my +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + “highest plot<br/> +To plant the Bergamot.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>THE FRUIT, AND ITS FLAVOR</h2> + +<p> +The time for wild apples is the last of October and the first of November. They +then get to be palatable, for they ripen late, and they are still, perhaps, as +beautiful as ever. I make a great account of these fruits, which the farmers do +not think it worth the while to gather,—wild flavors of the Muse, +vivacious and inspiriting. The farmer thinks that he has better in his barrels; +but he is mistaken, unless he has a walker’s appetite and imagination, +neither of which can he have. +</p> + +<p> +Such as grow quite wild, and are left out till the first of November, I presume +that the owner does not mean to gather. They belong to children as wild as +themselves,—to certain active boys that I know,—to the wild-eyed +woman of the fields, to whom nothing comes amiss, who gleans after all the +world,—and, moreover, to us walkers. We have met with them, and they are +ours. These rights, long enough insisted upon, have come to be an institution +in some old countries, where they have learned how to live. I hear that +“the custom of grippling, which may be called apple-gleaning, is, or was +formerly, practised in Herefordshire. It consists in leaving a few apples, +which are called the gripples, on every tree, after the general gathering, for +the boys, who go with climbing-poles and bags to collect them.” +</p> + +<p> +As for those I speak of, I pluck them as a wild fruit, native to this quarter +of the earth,—fruit of old trees that have been dying ever since I was a +boy and are not yet dead, frequented only by the wood-pecker and the squirrel, +deserted now by the owner, who has not faith enough to look under their boughs. +From the appearance of the tree-top, at a little distance, you would expect +nothing but lichens to drop from it, but your faith is rewarded by finding the +ground strewn with spirited fruit,—some of it, perhaps, collected at +squirrel-holes, with the marks of their teeth by which they carried +them,—some containing a cricket or two silently feeding within, and some, +especially in damp days, a shelless snail. The very sticks and stones lodged in +the tree-top might have convinced you of the savoriness of the fruit which has +been so eagerly sought after in past years. +</p> + +<p> +I have seen no account of these among the “Fruits and Fruit-Trees of +America,” though they are more memorable to my taste than the grafted +kinds; more racy and wild American flavors do they possess, when October and +November, when December and January, and perhaps February and March even, have +assuaged them somewhat. An old farmer in my neighborhood, who always selects +the right word, says that “they have a kind of bow-arrow tang.” +</p> + +<p> +Apples for grafting appear to have been selected commonly, not so much for +their spirited flavor, as for their mildness, their size, and bearing +qualities,—not so much for their beauty, as for their fairness and +soundness. Indeed, I have no faith in the selected lists of pomological +gentlemen. Their “Favorites” and “Non-suches” and +“Seek-no-farthers,” when I have fruited them, commonly turn out +very tame and forgetable. They are eaten with comparatively little zest, and +have no real <i>tang</i> nor <i>smack</i> to them. +</p> + +<p> +What if some of these wildings are acrid and puckery, genuine <i>verjuice</i>, +do they not still belong to the <i>Pomaceæ</i>, which are uniformly innocent +and kind to our race? I still begrudge them to the cider-mill. Perhaps they are +not fairly ripe yet. +</p> + +<p> +No wonder that these small and high-colored apples are thought to make the best +cider. Loudon quotes from the Herefordshire Report that “apples of a +small size are always, if equal in quality, to be preferred to those of a +larger size, in order that the rind and kernel may bear the greatest proportion +to the pulp, which affords the weakest and most watery juice.” And he +says, that, “to prove this, Dr. Symonds of Hereford, about the year 1800, +made one hogshead of cider entirely from the rinds and cores of apples, and +another from the pulp only, when the first was found of extraordinary strength +and flavor, while the latter was sweet and insipid.” +</p> + +<p> +Evelyn<a href="#fn10" name="fnref10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> says that the +“Red-strake” was the favorite cider-apple in his day; and he quotes +one Dr. Newburg as saying, “In Jersey ’t is a general observation, +as I hear, that the more of red any apple has in its rind, the more proper it +is for this use. Pale-faced apples they exclude as much as may be from their +cider-vat.” This opinion still prevails. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn10"></a> <a href="#fnref10">[10]</a> +An English writer of the seventeenth century. +</p> + +<p> +All apples are good in November. Those which the farmer leaves out as +unsalable, and unpalatable to those who frequent the markets, are choicest +fruit to the walker. But it is remarkable that the wild apple, which I praise +as so spirited and racy when eaten in the fields or woods, being brought into +the house, has frequently a harsh and crabbed taste. The Saunter-er’s +Apple not even the saunterer can eat in the house. The palate rejects it there, +as it does haws and acorns, and demands a tamed one; for there you miss the +November air, which is the sauce it is to be eaten with. Accordingly, when +Tityrus, seeing the lengthening shadows, invites Melibœus to go home and pass +the night with him, he promises him <i>mild</i> apples and soft chestnuts. I +frequently pluck wild apples of so rich and spicy a flavor that I wonder all +orchardists do not get a scion from that tree, and I fail not to bring home my +pockets full. But perchance, when I take one out of my desk and taste it in my +chamber I find it unexpectedly crude,—sour enough to set a +squirrel’s teeth on edge and make a jay scream. +</p> + +<p> +These apples have hung in the wind and frost and rain till they have absorbed +the qualities of the weather or season, and thus are highly <i>seasoned</i>, +and they <i>pierce</i> and <i>sting</i> and <i>permeate</i> us with their +spirit. They must be eaten in <i>season</i>, accordingly,—that is, +out-of-doors. +</p> + +<p> +To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of these October fruits, it is +necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air. The out-door +air and exercise which the walker gets give a different tone to his palate, and +he craves a fruit which the sedentary would call harsh and crabbed. They must +be eaten in the fields, when your system is all aglow with exercise, when the +frosty weather nips your fingers, the wind rattles the bare boughs or rustles +the few remaining leaves, and the jay is heard screaming around. What is sour +in the house a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these apples might be +labelled, “To be eaten in the wind.” +</p> + +<p> +Of course no flavors are thrown away; they are intended for the taste that is +up to them. Some apples have two distinct flavors, and perhaps one-half of them +must be eaten in the house, the other out-doors. One Peter Whitney wrote from +Northborough in 1782, for the Proceedings of the Boston Academy, describing an +apple-tree in that town “producing fruit of opposite qualities, part of +the same apple being frequently sour and the other sweet;” also some all +sour, and others all sweet, and this diversity on all parts of the tree. +</p> + +<p> +There is a wild apple on Nawshawtuck Hill in my town which has to me a +peculiarly pleasant bitter tang, not perceived till it is three-quarters +tasted. It remains on the tongue. As you eat it, it smells exactly like a +squash-bug. It is a sort of triumph to eat and relish it. +</p> + +<p> +I hear that the fruit of a kind of plum-tree in Provence is “called +<i>Prunes sibarelles</i>, because it is impossible to whistle after having +eaten them, from their sourness.” But perhaps they were only eaten in the +house and in summer, and if tried out-of-doors in a stinging atmosphere, who +knows but you could whistle an octave higher and clearer? +</p> + +<p> +In the fields only are the sours and bitters of Nature appreciated; just as the +wood-chopper eats his meal in a sunny glade, in the middle of a winter day, +with content, basks in a sunny ray there, and dreams of summer in a degree of +cold which, experienced in a chamber, would make a student miserable. They who +are at work abroad are not cold, but rather it is they who sit shivering in +houses. As with temperatures, so with flavors; as with cold and heat, so with +sour and sweet. This natural raciness, the sours and bitters which the diseased +palate refuses, are the true condiments. +</p> + +<p> +Let your condiments be in the condition of your senses. To appreciate the +flavor of these wild apples requires vigorous and healthy senses, +<i>papillæ</i><a href="#fn11" name="fnref11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> firm and erect +on the tongue and palate, not easily flattened and tamed. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn11"></a> <a href="#fnref11">[11]</a> +A Latin word, accent on the second syllable, meaning here the rough +surface of the tongue and palate. +</p> + +<p> +From my experience with wild apples, I can understand that there may be reason +for a savage’s preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man +rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild +taste to appreciate a wild fruit. +</p> + +<p> +What a healthy out-of-door appetite it takes to relish the apple of life, the +apple of the world, then! +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Nor is it every apple I desire,<br/> + Nor that which pleases every palate best;<br/> +’T is not the lasting Deuxan I require,<br/> + Nor yet the red-cheeked Greening I request,<br/> +Nor that which first beshrewed the name of wife,<br/> +Nor that whose beauty caused the golden strife:<br/> +No, no! bring me an apple from the tree of life.” +</p> + +<p> +So there is one <i>thought</i> for the field, another for the house. I would +have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not +warrant them to be palatable, if tasted in the house. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>THEIR BEAUTY</h2> + +<p> +Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and +rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the +eye. You will discover some evening redness dashed or sprinkled on some +protuberance or in some cavity. It is rare that the summer lets an apple go +without streaking or spotting it on some part of its sphere. It will have some +red stains, commemorating the mornings and evenings it has witnessed; some dark +and rusty blotches, in memory of the clouds and foggy, mildewy days that have +passed over it; and a spacious field of green reflecting the general face of +Nature,—green even as the fields; or a yellow ground, which implies a +milder flavor,—yellow as the harvest, or russet as the hills. +</p> + +<p> +Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair,—apples not of Discord, but +Concord! Yet not so rare but that the homeliest may have a share. Painted by +the frosts, some a uniform clear bright yellow, or red, or crimson, as if their +spheres had regularly revolved, and enjoyed the influence of the sun on all +sides alike,—some with the faintest pink blush imaginable,—some +brindled with deep red streaks like a cow, or with hundreds of fine blood-red +rays running regularly from the stem-dimple to the blossom-end, like meridional +lines, on a straw-colored ground,—some touched with a greenish rust, like +a fine lichen, here and there, with crimson blotches or eyes more or less +confluent and fiery when wet,—and others gnarly, and freckled or peppered +all over on the stem side with fine crimson spots on a white ground, as if +accidentally sprinkled from the brush of Him who paints the autumn leaves. +Others, again, are sometimes red inside, perfused with a beautiful blush, fairy +food, too beautiful to eat,—apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening +sky! But like shells and pebbles on the sea-shore, they must be seen as they +sparkle amid the withering leaves in some dell in the woods, in the autumnal +air, or as they lie in the wet grass, and not when they have wilted and faded +in the house. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>THE NAMING OF THEM</h2> + +<p> +It would be a pleasant pastime to find suitable names for the hundred varieties +which go to a single heap at the cider-mill. Would it not tax a man’s +invention,—no one to be named after a man, and all in the <i>lingua +vernacula?</i><a href="#fn12" name="fnref12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> Who shall +stand god-father at the christening of the wild apples? It would exhaust the +Latin and Greek languages, if they were used, and make the <i>lingua +vernacula</i> flag. We should have to call in the sunrise and the sunset, the +rainbow and the autumn woods and the wild flowers, and the woodpecker and the +purple finch, and the squirrel and the jay and the butterfly, the November +traveller and the truant boy, to our aid. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn12"></a> <a href="#fnref12">[12]</a> +<i>Lingua vernacula</i>, common speech. +</p> + +<p> +In 1836 there were in the garden of the London Horticultural Society more than +fourteen hundred distinct sorts. But here are species which they have not in +their catalogue, not to mention the varieties which our Crab might yield to +cultivation. Let us enumerate a few of these. I find myself compelled, after +all, to give the Latin names of some for the benefit of those who live where +English is not spoken,—for they are likely to have a world-wide +reputation. +</p> + +<p> +There is, first of all, the Wood-Apple (<i>Malus sylvatica</i>); the Blue-Jay +Apple; the Apple which grows in Dells in the Woods (<i>sylvestrivallis</i>), +also in Hollows in Pastures (<i>campestrivallis</i>); the Apple that grows in +an old Cellar-Hole (<i>Malus cellaris</i>); the Meadow-Apple; the +Partridge-Apple; the Truant’s Apple (<i>Cessatoris</i>), which no boy +will ever go by without knocking off some, however <i>late</i> it may be; the +Saunterer’s Apple,—you must lose yourself before you can find the +way to that; the Beauty of the Air (<i>Decus Aëris</i>); December-Eating; the +Frozen-Thawed (<i>gelato-soluta</i>), good only in that state; the Concord +Apple, possibly the same with the <i>Musketa-quidensis;</i> the Assabet Apple; +the Brindled Apple; Wine of New England; the Chickaree Apple; the Green Apple +(<i>Malus viridis</i>);—this has many synonyms; in an imperfect state, it +is the <i>Cholera morbifera aut dysenterifera, puerulis dilectissima;</i><a +href="#fn13" name="fnref13"><sup>[13]</sup></a>—the Apple which Atalanta +stopped to pick up; the Hedge-Apple (<i>Malus Sepium</i>); the Slug-Apple +(<i>limacea</i>); the Railroad-Apple, which perhaps came from a core thrown out +of the cars; the Apple whose Fruit we tasted in our Youth; our Particular +Apple, not to be found in any catalogue,—<i>Pedestrium Solatium;</i><a +href="#fn14" name="fnref14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> also the Apple where hangs the +Forgotten Scythe; Iduna’s Apples, and the Apples which Loki found in the +Wood; and a great many more I have on my list, too numerous to +mention,—all of them good. As Bodæus exclaims, referring to the +culti-vated kinds, and adapting Virgil to his case, so I, adapting +Bodæus,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths,<br/> +An iron voice, could I describe all the forms<br/> +And reckon up all the names of these <i>wild apples</i>.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn13"></a> <a href="#fnref13">[13]</a> +The apple that brings the disease of cholera and of dysentery, the fruit that +small boys like best. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn14"></a> <a href="#fnref14">[14]</a> +The tramp’s comfort. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>THE LAST GLEANING</h2> + +<p> +By the middle of November the wild apples have lost some of their brilliancy, +and have chiefly fallen. A great part are decayed on the ground, and the sound +ones are more palatable than before. The note of the chickadee sounds now more +distinct, as you wander amid the old trees, and the autumnal dandelion is +half-closed and tearful. But still, if you are a skilful gleaner, you may get +many a pocket-full even of grafted fruit, long after apples are supposed to be +gone out-of-doors. I know a Blue-Pearmain tree, growing within the edge of a +swamp, almost as good as wild. You would not suppose that there was any fruit +left there, on the first survey, but you must look according to system. Those +which lie exposed are quite brown and rotten now, or perchance a few still show +one blooming cheek here and there amid the wet leaves. Nevertheless, with +experienced eyes, I explore amid the bare alders and the huckleberry-bushes and +the withered sedge, and in the crevices of the rocks, which are full of leaves, +and pry under the fallen and decaying ferns, which, with apple and alder +leaves, thickly strew the ground. For I know that they lie concealed, fallen +into hollows long since and covered up by the leaves of the tree +itself,—a proper kind of packing. From these lurking-places, anywhere +within the circumference of the tree, I draw forth the fruit, all wet and +glossy, maybe nibbled by rabbits and hollowed out by crickets and perhaps with +a leaf or two cemented to it (as Curzon<a href="#fn15" +name="fnref15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> an old manuscript from a monastery’s +mouldy cellar), but still with a rich bloom on it, and at least as ripe and +well kept, if not better than those in barrels, more crisp and lively than +they. If these resources fail to yield anything, I have learned to look between +the bases of the suckers which spring thickly from some horizontal limb, for +now and then one lodges there, or in the very midst of an alder-clump, where +they are covered by leaves, safe from cows which may have smelled them out. If +I am sharp-set, for I do not refuse the Blue-Pearmain, I fill my pockets on +each side; and as I retrace my steps in the frosty eve, being perhaps four or +five miles from home, I eat one first from this side, and then from that, to +keep my balance. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn15"></a> <a href="#fnref15">[15]</a> +Robert Curzon was a traveller who searched for old manuscripts in the +monasteries of the Levant. See his book, Ancient Monasteries of the East. +</p> + +<p> +I learn from Topsell’s Gesner, whose authority appears to be Albertus, +that the following is the way in which the hedgehog collects and carries home +his apples. He says: “His meat is apples, worms, or grapes: when he +findeth apples or grapes on the earth, he rolleth himself upon them, until he +have filled all his prickles, and then carrieth them home to his den, never +bearing above one in his mouth; and if it fortune that one of them fall off by +the way, he likewise shaketh off all the residue, and walloweth upon them +afresh, until they be all settled upon his back again. So, forth he goeth, +making a noise like a cart-wheel; and if he have any young ones in his nest, +they pull off his load wherewithal he is loaded, eating thereof what they +please, and laying up the residue for the time to come.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>THE “FROZEN-THAWED” APPLE</h2> + +<p> +Toward the end of November, though some of the sound ones are yet more mellow +and perhaps more edible, they have generally, like the leaves, lost their +beauty, and are beginning to freeze. It is finger-cold, and prudent farmers get +in their barrelled apples, and bring you the apples and cider which they have +engaged; for it is time to put them into the cellar. Perhaps a few on the +ground show their red cheeks above the early snow, and occasionally some even +preserve their color and soundness under the snow throughout the winter. But +generally at the beginning of the winter they freeze hard, and soon, though +undecayed, acquire the color of a baked apple. +</p> + +<p> +Before the end of December, generally, they experience their first thawing. +Those which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and quite unpalatable to the +civilized taste, such at least as were frozen while sound, let a warmer sun +come to thaw them, for they are extremely sensitive to its rays, are found to +be filled with a rich, sweet cider, better than any bottled cider that I know +of, and with which I am better acquainted than with wine. All apples are good +in this state, and your jaws are the cider-press. Others, which have more +substance, are a sweet and luscious food,—in my opinion of more worth +than the pine-apples which are imported from the West Indies. Those which +lately even I tasted only to repent of it,—for I am +semi-civilized,—which the farmer willingly left on the tree, I am now +glad to find have the property of hanging on like the leaves of the young oaks. +It is a way to keep cider sweet without boiling. Let the frost come to freeze +them first, solid as stones, and then the rain or a warm winter day to thaw +them, and they will seem to have borrowed a flavor from heaven through the +medium of the air in which they hang. Or perchance you find, when you get home, +that those which rattled in your pocket have thawed, and the ice is turned to +cider. But after the third or fourth freezing and thawing they will not be +found so good. +</p> + +<p> +What are the imported half-ripe fruits of the torrid South to this fruit +matured by the cold of the frigid North? These are those crabbed apples with +which I cheated my companion, and kept a smooth face that I might tempt him to +eat. Now we both greedily fill our pockets with them,—bending to drink +the cup and save our lappets from the overflowing juice,—and grow more +social with their wine. Was there one that hung so high and sheltered by the +tangled branches that our sticks could not dislodge it? +</p> + +<p> +It is a fruit never carried to market, that I am aware of,—quite distinct +from the apple of the markets, as from dried apple and cider,—and it is +not every winter that produces it in perfection. +</p> + +<p> +The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past. It is a fruit which will probably +become extinct in New England. You may still wander through old orchards of +native fruit of great extent, which for the most part went to the cider-mill, +now all gone to decay. I have heard of an orchard in a distant town, on the +side of a hill, where the apples rolled down and lay four feet deep against a +wall on the lower side, and this the owner cut down for fear they should be +made into cider. Since the temperance reform and the general introduction of +grafted fruit, no native apple-trees, such as I see everywhere in deserted +pastures, and where the woods have grown up around them, are set out. I fear +that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure +of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many pleasures which he +will not know! Notwithstanding the prevalence of the Baldwin and the Porter, I +doubt if so extensive orchards are set out to-day in my town as there were a +century ago, wrhen those vast straggling cider-orchards were planted, when men +both ate and drank apples, when the pomace-heap was the only nursery, and trees +cost nothing but the trouble of setting them out. Men could afford then to +stick a tree by every wall-side and let it take its chance. I see nobody +planting trees to-day in such out-of-the-way places, along the lonely roads and +lanes, and at the bottom of dells in the wood. Now that they have grafted +trees, and pay a priee for them, they collect them into a plat by their houses, +and fence them in,—and the end of it all will be that we shall be +compelled to look for our apples in a barrel. +</p> + +<p> +This is “The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. +</p> + +<p> +“Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land! +Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?... +</p> + +<p> +“That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that +which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten; and that which the +canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. +</p> + +<p> +“Awake, ye drunkards, and weep! and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, +because of the new wine! for it is cut off from your mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose +teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek-teeth of a great lion. +</p> + +<p> +“He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree; he hath made it +clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.... +</p> + +<p> +“Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen! howl, O ye vine-dressers!... +</p> + +<p> +“The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth; the +pomegranate-tree, the palm tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of +the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of +men.”<a href="#fn16" name="fnref16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn16"></a> <a href="#fnref16">[16]</a> +J<small>OEL</small>, chapter i., verses 1–12. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD APPLES ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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