Who shall stand godfather at the
christening
of
the wild apples?
the wild apples?
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
"
So there is one _thought_ 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.
THEIR BEAUTY
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.
Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair,--apples not of Discord, but of
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 seashore, 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.
THE NAMING OF THEM
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
_lingua vernacula_?
Who shall stand godfather at the christening of
the wild apples? It would exhaust the Latin and Greek languages, if
they were used, and make the _lingua vernacula_ 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 traveler
and the truant boy, to our aid.
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.
There is, first of all, the Wood Apple (_Malus sylvatica_); the
Blue-Jay Apple; the Apple which grows in Dells in the Woods
(_sylvestrivallis_), also in Hollows in Pastures (_campestrivallis_);
the Apple that grows in an old Cellar-Hole (_Malus cellaris_); the
Meadow Apple; the Partridge Apple; the Truant's Apple (_cessatoris_),
which no boy will ever go by without knocking off some, however _late_
it may be; the Saunterer's Apple,--you must lose yourself before you
can find the way to that; the Beauty of the Air (_decus aeris_);
December-Eating; the Frozen-Thawed (_gelato-soluta_), good only in
that state; the Concord Apple, possibly the same with the
_Musketaquidensis_; the Assabet Apple; the Brindled Apple; Wine of New
England; the Chickaree Apple; the Green Apple (_Malus viridis_),--this
has many synonyms: in an imperfect state, it is the _choleramorbifera
aut dysenterifera_, _puerulis dilectissima_; the Apple which Atalanta
stopped to pick up; the Hedge Apple (_Malus sepium_); the Slug Apple
(_limacea_); 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; _pedestrium
solatium_; 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
Bodaeus exclaims, referring to the cultivated kinds, and adapting
Virgil to his case, so I, adapting Bodaeus,--
"Not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths,
An iron voice, could I describe all the forms
And reckon up all the names of these _wild apples_. "
THE LAST GLEANING
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 skillful gleaner, you may get many a pocketful
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.
So there is one _thought_ 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.
THEIR BEAUTY
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.
Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair,--apples not of Discord, but of
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 seashore, 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.
THE NAMING OF THEM
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
_lingua vernacula_?
Who shall stand godfather at the christening of
the wild apples? It would exhaust the Latin and Greek languages, if
they were used, and make the _lingua vernacula_ 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 traveler
and the truant boy, to our aid.
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.
There is, first of all, the Wood Apple (_Malus sylvatica_); the
Blue-Jay Apple; the Apple which grows in Dells in the Woods
(_sylvestrivallis_), also in Hollows in Pastures (_campestrivallis_);
the Apple that grows in an old Cellar-Hole (_Malus cellaris_); the
Meadow Apple; the Partridge Apple; the Truant's Apple (_cessatoris_),
which no boy will ever go by without knocking off some, however _late_
it may be; the Saunterer's Apple,--you must lose yourself before you
can find the way to that; the Beauty of the Air (_decus aeris_);
December-Eating; the Frozen-Thawed (_gelato-soluta_), good only in
that state; the Concord Apple, possibly the same with the
_Musketaquidensis_; the Assabet Apple; the Brindled Apple; Wine of New
England; the Chickaree Apple; the Green Apple (_Malus viridis_),--this
has many synonyms: in an imperfect state, it is the _choleramorbifera
aut dysenterifera_, _puerulis dilectissima_; the Apple which Atalanta
stopped to pick up; the Hedge Apple (_Malus sepium_); the Slug Apple
(_limacea_); 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; _pedestrium
solatium_; 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
Bodaeus exclaims, referring to the cultivated kinds, and adapting
Virgil to his case, so I, adapting Bodaeus,--
"Not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths,
An iron voice, could I describe all the forms
And reckon up all the names of these _wild apples_. "
THE LAST GLEANING
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 skillful gleaner, you may get many a pocketful
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.
