APPLES. 



"Come, let us plant the apple tree. 

 Cleave the tough greensward with the spade ; 

 Wide let its hollow bed be made ; 

 There gently lay the roots, and there 

 Sift the dark mold with kindly care 



And press it o'er them tenderly ; 

 As 'round the sleeping infant's feet 

 We softly fold the cradle sheet, 



So plant we the apple tree." Henry W. Longfellow. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



S the garden was the first habitation in which we are 

 told Man was placed, so the apple is the first fruit of 

 which mention is made as flourishing in it. And, while it 

 is supposed to have been the cause of his banishment from 

 the home first given him, it is to be stated to the credit of 

 this fruit, that it followed him out of the Garden of Eden 

 and has kept him company and been a solace to him all 

 through his wanderings over the earth, in almost every zone 

 and under the most adverse circumstances, thereby endeavor- 

 ing to atone, as far as lay in its power, for the trouble it 

 originally caused. 



Many centuries passed before "varieties" were cata- 

 logued. Even up to the time of Pliny, the Roman historian, 

 but a score or so were named by the pomologists of that 

 era. In these later days we are given, by such undoubted 

 authority as Professor Warder, a list of over two thousand 

 from which to select ; varieties adapted to every month in 

 the year, of every conceivable flavor, size, shape, color. 



The value of the apple, considered apart from its 

 market value, is well set forth by a correspondent of Cole- 

 man's Rural World, while discussing the apple for its health- 



