NEXT YEAR'S APPLES 



THIS year's apples have for the most part been 

 picked up from a rapidly accumulating carpet of 

 leaves, which, however, worms and the rain are stow- 

 ing at the roots of the grass for the needs of future 

 vegetation. Every day a cleaning wind strips the 

 trees, leaving the tits a diminished ground of search 

 at each visit. Just a yellow pennon flutters here 

 and there, like a builder's flag, to signify that the 

 last of the scaffolding is coming down. The sun- 

 shine runs glancing up and down the clean, whole- 

 some branches, turning some to silver, others to 

 bronze. Old familiar beauties, not seen since March, 

 come to light again at the removal of the leaves that 

 had smothered them the fork in a lime that joins 

 again to make a lancet-window, the arch with a 

 broken end from which springs up a new arch of 

 airier construction, the inimitable curve of the branch 

 fighting between gravity and aspiration. 



On the trunk of a favourite apple tree flutters a 

 little pennon that cannot be a leaf. It is not gay 

 with autumn tint, but of a dull earthy brown. A 

 delicate-winged moth has caught there, its long thin 

 legs held so fast that the planes of its feeble wings 

 cannot raise it free. The male of a winter moth, 

 caught in the band of " grease " with which a fore- 

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