The Apples 



of apples" is named with the odours of spikenard and camphire 

 and bundles of myrrh. Read the classics, ancient and modern. 

 Fancy the story of the fall of Troy or the legend of William Tell 

 with the apple left out! 



If we would know what this wild European apple is like we 

 may get a good idea by planting an apple seed, and watching the 

 tree that springs from it. Or we may save time by examining a 

 wilding tree in the fence corner, planted perhaps by the hand 

 that threw away an apple core years ago. Suppose it was the 

 seed of a fine desert variety of apple. Its offspring will not bear 

 the same variety and quality of fruit. It is almost sure to " revert 

 to the wild type." That is, the fruit of it will be small, sour and 

 gnarly, just such apples as the orchard tree would have borne if 

 it had not been grafted or budded while it stood in the nursery 

 row. 



But there are exceptions to every rule. There are varieties 

 of apples — a very few — that "come true from seed." Such is 

 La Belle Famcuse, the ruddy-cheeked, white-fleshed "Snow" 

 of the Northeastern States — the domestic apple of the Canadian 

 French. Up and down the valley of the St. Lawrence this apple 

 tree grew in the gardens of the early settlers. The seeds were 

 carried and distributed by neighbours, by migrant traders, but 

 chiefly by the Jesuit missionaries whose hope was that the home- 

 sick habitant should grow to love the land of his adoption. And 

 they were not disappointed. Generations passed, and the tree 

 became an intimate part of the home life of New France. Drum- 

 mond, poet of the habitant, describes the old-fashioned garden, 

 modelled on the typical one of precious memory in sunny France: 



"Dat house on de hill, you can see it still. 

 She's sam' place he buil' de firs' tam' he come; 

 Behin' it dere's one leetle small jardin. 

 Got plaintee de bes' tabac Canayen, 

 Wit Fameuse apple, an' beeg blue plum." 



It was a hard life, and the touch of poetry and luxury brought 

 into it by these fruit trees was not lost on the appreciative habitant. 

 He had his domestic animals, and the home flowers about his 

 door — "the leetle small jardin" — and he was comforted in the 

 land of the long, cold winters. His apple trees were as much a 

 part of his establishment as the dog and cow and team of horses. 

 He cherished them next to his family and his religion. In fact, 



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