146 THE APPLE. 



this variety. They were perfect gems. Not large, 

 that had not been the aim, but small, fair, uniform, 

 and red to the core. How intense, how spicy and 

 aromatic. 



But all the excellences of the apple are not con- 

 fined to the cultivated fruit. Occasionally a seedling 

 springs up about the farm that produces fruit of rare 

 beauty and worth. In sections peculiarly adapted to 

 the apple, like a certain belt along the Hudson River, 

 I have noticed that most of the wild unbidden trees 

 bear good, edible fruit. In cold and ungenial districts, 

 the seedlings are mostly sour and crabbed, but in 

 more favorable soils they are oftener mild and sweet. 

 I know wild apples that ripen in August, and that do 

 not need, if it could be had, Thoreau's sauce of sharp, 

 November air to be eaten with. At the foot of a 

 hill near me and striking its roots deep in the shale, 

 is a giant specimen of native tree that bears an apple 

 that has about the clearest, waxiest, most transparent 

 complexion I ever saw. It is good size, and the 

 color of a tea rose. Its quality is best appreciated in 

 the kitchen. I know another seedling of excellent 

 quality and so remarkable for its firmness and den- 

 sity, that it is known on the farm where it grows as 

 the " heavy apple." 



I have alluded to Thoreau, to whom all lovers of 

 the apple and its tree are under obligation. His 

 chapter on Wild Apples is a most delicious piece of 

 writing. It has a " tang and smack " like the fruit 

 it celebrates, and is dashed and streaked with color 



