And perhaps I talk with one who is
selecting
some choice
barrels to fulfill an order.
barrels to fulfill an order.
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
and
think you that they will let Loki or Thjassi carry them off to
Jotunheim, while they grow wrinkled and gray? No, for Ragnarok, or the
destruction of the gods, is not yet.
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.
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 banyan
trees. As an old English manuscript says, "The mo appelen the tree
bereth the more sche boweth to the folk. "
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.
Between the 5th and 20th of October I see the barrels lie under the
trees.
And perhaps I talk with one who is selecting some choice
barrels to fulfill 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.
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:--
'Here's to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats-full! caps-full!
Bushel, bushel, sacks-full!
And my pockets full, too! Hurra! '"
Also what was called "apple-howling" used to be practiced 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:--
"Stand fast, root!
think you that they will let Loki or Thjassi carry them off to
Jotunheim, while they grow wrinkled and gray? No, for Ragnarok, or the
destruction of the gods, is not yet.
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.
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 banyan
trees. As an old English manuscript says, "The mo appelen the tree
bereth the more sche boweth to the folk. "
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.
Between the 5th and 20th of October I see the barrels lie under the
trees.
And perhaps I talk with one who is selecting some choice
barrels to fulfill 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.
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:--
'Here's to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats-full! caps-full!
Bushel, bushel, sacks-full!
And my pockets full, too! Hurra! '"
Also what was called "apple-howling" used to be practiced 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:--
"Stand fast, root!
