HOW THE WILD APPLE GROWS. 69 



som-week at last, and in course of time its harvest, 

 sincere, though small. 



By the end of some October, when its leaves have 

 fallen, I frequently see such a central sprig, whose 

 progress I have watched, when I thought it had for 

 gotten its destiny, as I had, bearing its first crop of 

 small green or yellow or rosy fruit, which the cows 

 cannot get at over the bushy and thorny hedge which 

 surrounds it, and I make haste to taste the new and 

 undescribed variety. We have all heard of the nu 

 merous varieties of fruit invented by Van Mons 1 and 

 Knight. 2 This is the system of Van Cow, and she 

 has invented far more and more memorable varieties 

 than both of them. 



Through what hardships it may attain to bear a 

 sweet fruit ! Though somewhat small, it may prove 

 equal, if not superior, in flavor to that which has 

 grown in a garden, will perchance be all the sweeter 

 and more palatable for the very difficulties it has had 

 to contend with. Who knows but this chance wild 

 fruit, planted by a cow or a bird on some remote and 

 rocky hillside, where it is as yet unobserved by man, 

 may be the choicest of all its kind, and foreign poten 

 tates shall hear of it, and royal societies seek to propa 

 gate it, though the virtues of the perhaps truly crabbed 

 owner of the soil may never be heard of, at least, 

 beyond the limits of his village ? It was thus the 

 Porter and the Baldwin grew. 



Every wild -apple shrub excites our expectation 

 thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a 

 prince in disguise. What a lesson to man ! So are 



human beings, referred to the highest standard, the 



\ 



1 A Belgian chemist and horticulturist. 



2 An English vegetable physiologist. 



