THE &quot;FROZEN-THAWED&quot; APPLE. 83 



one that hung so high and sheltered by the tangled 

 branches that our sticks could not dislodge it ? 



It is a fruit never carried to market, that I am 

 aware of, quite distinct from the apple of the 

 markets, as from dried apple and cider, and it is 

 not every winter that produces it in perfection. 



The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past. It 

 is a fruit which will probably become extinct in New 

 England. You may still wander through old orchards 

 of native fruit of great extent, which for the most 

 part went to the cider-mill, now all gone to decay. I 

 have heard of an orchard in a distant town, on the 

 side of a hill, where the apples rolled down and lay 

 four feet deep against a wall on the lower side, and 

 this the owner cut down for fear they should be made 

 into cider. Since the temperance reform and the 

 general introduction of grafted fruit, no native apple- 

 trees, such as I see everywhere in deserted pastures, 

 and where the woods have grown up around them, 

 are set out. I fear that he who walks over these 

 fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of 

 knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are 

 many pleasures which he will not know ! Notwith 

 standing the prevalence of the Baldwin and the 

 Porter, I doubt if so extensive orchards are set out 

 to-day in my town as there were a century ago, when 

 those vast straggling cider-orchards were planted, 

 when men both ate and drank apples, when the 

 pomace-heap was the only nursery, and trees cost 

 nothing but the trouble of setting them out. Men 

 could afford then to stick a tree by every wall-side 

 and let it take its chance. I see nobody planting 

 trees to-day in such out-of-the-way places, along the 



