THE APPLE. 27 



develop into fine full-bearing trees by the third year. 

 The people know the value of the apple too. They 

 make cider and wine of it and then from the refuse a 

 white and finely flavored spirit ; then by another pro- 

 cess a sweet treacle is obtained called honey. The 

 children and the pigs eat little or no other food. He 

 does not add that the people are healthy and temper- 

 ate, but I have no doubt they are. We knew the 

 apple had many virtues, but these Chilians have really 

 opened a deep beneath a deep. We had found out 

 the cider and the spirits, but who guessed the wine 

 and the honey, unless it were the bees ? There is a 

 variety in our orchards called the winesap, a doubly 

 liquid name that suggests what might be done with 

 this fruit. 



The apple is the commonest and yet the most varied 

 and beautiful of fruits. A dish of them is as becom- 

 ing: to the centre-table in winter as was the vase of 

 flowers in the summer, — a bouquet of spitzenbergs 

 and greenings and northern spies. A rose when it 

 blooms, the apple is a rose when it ripens. It pleases 

 every sense to which it can be addressed, the touch, 

 the smell, the sight, the taste ; and when it falls in the 

 still October days it pleases the ear. It is a call to a 

 banquet, it is a signal that the feast is ready. The 

 bouo:h would fain hold it, but it can now assert its in- 

 dependence; it can now live a life of its own. 



Daily the stem relaxes its hold, till finally it lets go 

 completely, and down comes the painted sphere with a 

 mellow thumo to the earth, towards which it has been 

 nodding so long. It bounds away to seek its bed, to 

 hide under a leaf, or in a tuft of grass. It will now 

 take time to meditate and ripen ! What delicious 

 thoughts it has there nestled with its fellows under 



