THE APPLE. 39 
the same manner. It has the hue and perfume of the 
crab, and the richness and raciness of the pippin. But 
Thoreau loved other apples than the wild sorts and 
was obliged to confess that his favorites could not be 
eaten in-doors. Late in November he found a blue- 
pearmain tree growing within the edge of a swamp, 
almost as good as wild. ‘“ You would not suppose,’ 
he says, “that there was any fruit left there on the 
first survey, but you must look according to system. 
Those which lie exposed are quite brown and rotten 
now, or perchance a few still show one blooming cheek 
here and there amid the wet leaves. Nevertheless, 
with experienced eyes I explore amid the bare alders, 
and the huckleberry bushes, and the withered sedge, 
and in the crevices of the rocks, which are full of 
leaves, and pry under the fallen and decayed ferns 
which, with apple and alder leaves, thickly strew the 
ground. For I know that they lie concealed, fallen 
into hollows long since, and covered up by the leaves 
of the tree itself —a proper kind of packing. From 
these lurking places, everywhere within the circum- 
ference of the tree, I draw forth the fruit all wet and 
glossy, maybe nibbled by rabbits and hollowed out 
by crickets, and perhaps a leaf or two cemented to it 
(as Curzon an old manuscript from a monastery’s 
mouldy cellar), but still with a rich bloom on it, and 
at least as ripe and well kept, if no better than those 
in barrels, more crisp and lively than they. If these 
resources fail to yield anything, I have learned to look 
between the leaves of the suckers which spring thickly 
from some horizontal limb, for now and then one 
lodges there, or in the very midst of an alder-clump, 
where they are covered by leaves, safe from cows which 
may have smelled them out. If I am sharp-set, for I 
