Comfort Me with Apples 195 



At White Hall, the old home of Bishop Berkeley 

 in the island of Rhode Island, still stand the Apple 

 trees of his day. A picture of them is shown on 

 page 194. 



The sedate and comfortable motherliness of old 

 Apple trees is felt by all Apple lovers. John Bur- 

 roughs speaks of " maternal old Apple trees, regu- 

 lar old grandmothers, who have seen trouble." 

 James Lane Allen, amid his apostrophes to the 

 Hemp plant, has given us some beautiful glimpses 

 of Apple trees and his love for them. He tells of 

 " provident old tree mothers on the orchard slope, 

 whose red-cheeked children are autumn Apples." 

 It is this motherliness, this domesticity, this home- 

 liness that makes the Apple tree so cherished, so 

 beloved. No scene of life in the country ever seems 

 to me homelike if it lacks an Apple orchard — this 

 doubtless, because in my birthplace in New England 

 thev form a part of every farm scene, of every coun- 

 try home. Apple trees soften and humanize the 

 wildest country scene. Even in a remote pasture, 

 or on a mountain side, they convey a sentiment of 

 home; and after being lost in the mazes of close- 

 grown wood-roads Apple trees are inexpressibly 

 welcome as giving promise of a sheltering roof-tree. 

 Thoreau wrote of wild Apples, but to me no Apples 

 ever look wild. They may be the veriest Crabs, 

 growing in wild spots, unbidden, and savage and 

 bitter in their tang, but even these seedling Pippins 

 are domestic in aspect. 



On the southern shores of Long Island, where 

 meadow, pasture, and farm are in soil and crops 



