No More Learning

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Evelyn says that the "Red-strake" was the favorite cider-apple in his
day; and he quotes one Dr. Newburg as saying, "In Jersey 'tis 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.

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 Saunterer'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 Meliboeus to go home and pass the night
with him, he promises him _mild_ apples and soft chestnuts,--_mitia
poma_, _castaneae molles_. 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.

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
_seasoned_, and they _pierce_ and _sting_ and _permeate_ us with their
spirit. They must be eaten in _season_, accordingly,--that is,
out-of-doors.

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 outdoor 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
labeled, "To be eaten in the wind. "

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 outdoors. 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.

There is a wild apple on Nawshawtuct 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.

I hear that the fruit of a kind of plum tree in Provence is "called
_Prunes sibarelles_, 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?

In the fields only are the sours and bitters of Nature appreciated;
just as the woodchopper 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.