Cultivated Fruits. 65 



window into the street, and to wait and see who picks it up. 

 If a man, the girl will be be married before the year is out. 

 If a woman, there will be no marriage that year. If the 

 first- comer looks at the apple without touching it, it is a 

 sign that the girl, when she marries will soon be widowed. 



If the first to pass be a priest, the young girl will die with- 

 out being married. 



At Tarentum, in southern Italy, at wedding feasts, when 

 the repast has come to the final apples, each guest takes 

 one, makes a slit in it with a knife and inserts a silver coin. 

 These are offered to the bride, who bites them one by one 

 and takes out the money. 



On ancient Greek tombs Eros is represented with a basket 

 into which apples are falling. 



The apple is obviously a symbol not alone of reproductive 

 power, but of immortality, as well. 



In a Lettish (Lithunian) ballad, the apple tree stands for 

 the solar tree, the impersonation of the sun. The sun loses 

 his golden apple, and bewails its loss, he is put to sleep in 

 an orchard and told that in the morning he will find his 

 apple again, but the sun goes on crying because he has lost 

 his golden boat, and is consoled by telling him, that he shall 

 have another half gold, half silver. 



This idea seems to furnish quite an appropriate commen- 

 tary, on the voyage of Hercules to the Hesperides. 



There is a very pretty mythological enigma among the 

 Swedish, "Our mother has a coverlet none can fold, our 

 father has more gold thad any can count, our brother has 

 an apple no one can bite. " 



The explanation of the riddle is this: Our mother is the 

 earth, the earth's coverlet is the sky, our celestial father is 

 God. His stars are innumerable, our brother is the Savior 

 whose apple is the sun. 



Cultivated pears, whose number is enormous, are without 

 doubt derived from one or two wild species widely distrib- 

 uted throughout Europe and western Asia, and sometimes 

 forming part of the natural vegatation of the forests. 



In England, where the pear is sometimes considered wild, 



there is always doubt that it may not really be so, but the 

 6-H. 



