No More Learning

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.

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. "

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, kingbird, 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.
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.

The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most beautiful of any tree's,
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!

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 stillborn, 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,--

"At Michaelmas time, or a little before,
Half an apple goes to the core. "

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,--carrying
me forward to those days when they will be collected in golden and
ruddy heaps in the orchards and about the cider-mills.

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.

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.