THE APPLE. 



Lo I sweetened with the summer light, 

 The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, 

 Drops in a silent autumn night. TENNYSOIC 



NOT a little of the sunshine of our northern -win- 

 ters is surely wrapped up in the apple. How could 

 we winter over without it ! How is life sweetened 

 by its mild acids ! A cellar well filled with apples is 

 more valuable than a chamber filled with flax and 

 wool. So much sound ruddy life to draw upon, to 

 ^strike one's roots down into, as it were. 



Especially to those whose soil of life is inclined to 

 be a little clayey and heavy, is the apple a winter 

 necessity. It is the natural antidote of most of the 

 ills the flesh is heir to. Full of vegetable acids and 

 aroinatics, qualities which act as refrigerants and an- 

 tiseptics, what an enemy it is to jaundice, indigestion, 

 torpidity of liver, etc. It is a gentle spur and tonic 

 to the whole biliary system. Then I have read that 

 it has been found by analysis to contain more phos- 

 phorus than any other vegetable. This makes it the 

 proper food of the scholar and the sedentary man ; it 

 feeds his brain and it stimulates his liver. Neither is 



