THE FRUIT. 163 
sa Pomme, the literal English of which would be 
*‘ making one’s apple.” We should perhaps have 
called it, had it been one of our popular customs, 
““The Apple Feast.” 
When, in the flower, the pollen has been thus 
applied to the stigma, a great and often very 
sudden change takes place in the flower. As if 
conscious that the end of its existence was now 
accomplished, it shrivels up, withers, and gene- 
rally drops from the tree, shedding its beautiful 
petals upon the ground to rot and crumble into 
dust. The ovary then swells, and with its con- 
tained seeds, becomes the fruit. 
As every one knows, the fruit undergoes great 
changes as it ripens. If we look at an apple just 
as it begins to be formed, we find it to be a very 
different object from that which, when ripe, is 
perhaps our favourite dish at dessert. Now, it is 
a hard, woody, sour, or tasteless knob of tissue, 
which we are well content to let remain on the 
tree until it lose all these characters. Then, it 
has become a juicy, soft, well-formed, and de- 
liciously flavoured substance, tinged in many 
instances, as in the American Lady Apple re- 
cently introduced into our fruiterers’ shops, with 
