58 THE APPLE. 



Among animals, the toad and the bat are great insect destroyers. 

 The common bat lives almost entirely upon them, and in its evening 

 sallies devours a great number of moths, beetles, weevils, etc. ; and the 

 toad quietly makes away with numberless smaller insects. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE APPLE. 



Pyrus Mains, L. Rosacem, of botanists. 



Pommier, of the French; Apfelbaum, German; Apfd, Dutch; Melo porno, Ital- 

 ian ; and Manzana, Spanish. 



THE Apple is the world-renowned fruit of temperate climates. From 

 the most remote periods it has been the subject of praise among writers 

 and poets, and the old mythologies all endow its fruit with wonderful vir- 

 tues. The allegorical tree of knowledge bore apples, and the celebrated 

 golden fruit of the orchards of Hesperus, guarded by the sleepless dragon 

 which it was one of the triumphs of Hercules to slay, were also apples, 

 according to the old legends. Among the heathen gods of the north, 

 there were apples fabled to possess the power of conferring immortality, 

 which were carefully watched over by the goddess Iduna, and kept for 

 the especial dessert of the gods who felt themselves growing old ! As 

 the mistletoe grew chiefly on the apple and the oak, the former tree was 

 looked upon with great respect and reverence by the ancient Druids of 

 Britain ; and even to this day, in some parts of England, the antique 

 custom of saluting the apple-trees in the orchards, in the hope of obtain- 

 ing a good crop the next year, still lingers among the farmers of portions 

 of Devonshire and Herefordshire. This old ceremony consists of salut- 

 ing the tree with a portion of the contents of a wassail-bowl of cider, 

 with a toast in it, by pouring a little of the cider about the roots, and 

 even hanging a bit of the toast on the branches of the most barren, the 

 farmer and his men dancing in a circle round the tree, and singing rude 

 songs like the following : 



" Here's to thee, old apple-tree. 



Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow ; 

 And whence thou mayst bear apples enow, 

 Hats full ! caps full- 

 Bushels and sacks full ! 

 Huzza ! " 



The species of crab from which all our sorts of Apples have originated, 

 is wild in most parts of Europe. There are, indeed, two or three kinds 

 of wild crab belonging to this country ; as the Pyrus coronaria, or sweet- 

 scented crab, with fruit about an inch in diameter, grows in many parts 

 of the United States ; and the wild crab of Oregon, P. rivularis, bear- 

 ing a reddish-yellow fruit, about the size of a cherry, which the Chenook 

 Indians use as an article of food ; yet none of our cultivated varieties of 

 Apple have been raised from these native crabs, but from seeds of the 

 species brought here, by the colonists, from Europe. 



