UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



frequently leave his drilling on one tree and go to 

 another, drilling into a small red apple which had 

 lodged among some twigs on a horizontal branch; he 

 ate the pulp, and had made quite a large hole in 

 the apple, when it became dislodged and fell to the 

 ground. It is plain, therefore, that the sapsucker 

 likes the juice of the apple, and of the tree that bears 

 the apple. He is the only orchard bird who is a 

 tippler. Among the forest trees, he sucks the sap of 

 the sugar maples in spring, and I have seen evi- 

 dence of his having drilled into small white pines, 

 cutting out an oblong section from the bark, appar- 

 ently to get at the soft cambium layer. 



It is a pleasant experience to sit in my orchard 

 camp of a still morning and hear an apple drop here 

 and there — " indolent ripe," as Whitman says, in the 

 fullness of time, or prematurely ripe from a worm 

 at its heart. The worm finds its account in getting 

 down to the ground where it can pupate, and in both 

 cases the tree has finished a bit of its work and is 

 getting ready for its winter sleep ; and in both cases 

 the squirrels and the woodchucks profit by the fall. 

 But September woodchucks are few; most of them 

 retire to their holes for the long winter sleep during 

 this month; the harvest apples that fall in August 

 hit them at the right moment; but the red squirrels 

 are alert for the apple-seeds during both months, 

 and they chip up many apples for these delicate 

 morsels. They also love the hollow branches and 



4 



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