THE APPLE. 141 



third season the stump is changed (as I have myself seen) 

 into a well-wooded tree, loaded with fruit. An old man 

 near Valdivia illustrated his motto, 'Necessity is the mother 

 of invention,' by giving an account of the several useful 

 things he manufactured from his apples. After making 

 cider and likewise wine, he extracted from the refuse a 

 white and purely-flavoured spirit ; by another process he 

 procured a sweet treacle, or, as he called it, honey. His 

 children and pigs seemed almost to live, during this season 

 of the year, in his orchard." 



It is somewhat singular that a very similar method of 

 propagating Apple-trees is practised in so remote a country 

 as China. The thick branch of a tree, when in full flower, 

 is deprived of a ring of bark, and the place covered round 

 with a lump of rich loam. This is kept moist by water, 

 allowed to drip from a horn suspended above ; and when 

 the roots have pushed into the loam, which is usually the 

 case when the fruit is nearly ripe, the branch is cut off 

 and planted in a pot. Dwarf-trees, laden with fruit, are 

 favourite ornaments among the Chinese. On the occasion 

 of certain festivals they are exposed on stands before the 

 houses, along with grotesque figures of porcelain and paste- 

 board, which are made to perform a variety of absurd 

 movements, by the agency of mice confined within them. 

 Besides the Apple, the Orange and other kinds of fruit- 

 trees are propagated in this way ; and fine (that is, stunted 

 and gnarled) specimens fetch a high price. They are 

 said to live from two to three hundred years, never 

 much exceeding a foot in height, and producing annu- 

 ally from twenty to thirty large apples. Several forest 

 trees are treated in the same manner, particularly the Elm. 



The destructive insect called American blight (for no 

 other reason, one would suppose, than that it has long 

 been the custom to ascribe the origin of most strange- 

 looking things to the New World) is one of the greatest 

 enemies of the Apple-tree. It is easily distinguished by 

 its white cottony appendage, which is said to serve the 



