THE APPLE. 147 



in 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 con- 

 cealed, 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 circumference of the tree, I draw forth the 

 fruit all wet and glossy, may be 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 



