6 OTTE COMMON FETJITS. 



brethren, too, the individual fruits sometimes attain im- 

 mense size, the " Beauty of Kent," it is said, being found 

 there frequently measuring 16 or 18 in. in circumference ; 

 and Ernest Seyd, in his California and its Resources, men- 

 tions an apple measuring 15 in. each way, and weighing 

 23 ozs., having been grown in an orchard in that country. 

 In Siberia it reaches its opposite limit of smallness, 

 and though the wild apple, indigenous to milder Europe, 

 cannot endure the keen blasts of that region of frost, the 

 diminutive cherry-like Crab, named after its native land, 

 and which is so common in our gardens, is found widely 

 distributed, holding the place, too, of a " triton among 

 minnows," when compared with its compatriot the Cur- 

 rant Crab, the tiny red mealy-fleshed fruits of which are 

 not more than ~ in. in diameter, or about the size of 

 currants, and are borne like them in clusters. 



Leaving out of question the fruits of doubtful nature, 

 figuring in ancient history or fable under the name of 

 apple, once indiscriminately bestowed on almost every 

 large solid roundish fruit, it is held to be proved that the 

 Pyrus mala of botany, which in modern days exclusively 

 owns that title, was known to very remote ages. Among 

 the Thebans it was offered to Hercules, a custom derived 

 from the circumstance of a river having once so over- 

 flowed its ordinary limits as to prevent a sheep being 

 carried across it for a sacrifice to the labour-loving god, 

 when some youths, on the strength of the Greek word 

 melon signifying both a sheep and an apple, stuck four 

 wooden pegs into the fruit to represent legs, and brought 

 the vegetable quadruped thus extemporized as a substi- 

 tute for the usual offering, after which the apple was 

 always looked on as specially devoted to Hercules. The 

 same fruit is said to have been the favourite dessert of 

 Philip of Macedon, and also of his son Alexander, at all 

 of whose meals it was served ; and it was so common a 

 close to Roman repasts as to have given rise to the pro- 

 verbial expression, "from the egg to the apple," implying 

 the whole course of a meal, eggs being usually the first 

 dish brought to table. . It is, of course, descanted upon 

 by Pliny. " Of apples," says he, " that is to say, of fruits 



