THE APPLE-TREE. 



Br THOMAS CBAGOE, F.R.G.S. 



The genus Pyrus of the natural order Rosacece comprises 

 the Pear, Crab-apple, Beam-tree and Mountain-ash, natives of 

 Europe, N. Asia, mountains of India and N. America. 



The Apple-tree, Pryus mains sativus, has occupied a very 

 distinguished place in the annals of the human race, more 

 especially among northern nations, and most especially, perhaps, 

 in Britian, the native home of the Crab, from whose austere and 

 ancient stock have proceeded all those mellow varieties of ruddy 

 and gold which adorn our orchards to day, and which have 

 accompanied the mighty offshoots of the Anglo-Saxon race to 

 the far off corners of the world — to the Southernmost point of 

 Africa — to the shores of the Austral Isles — and to the interior 

 spaces of the Great Western Continent. 



In the slowly revolving seons of time, nature working 

 upwards to a higher and higher degree of perfection, the apple, 

 like the butterflies and flowers, must have been a later product 

 of our teeming globe. 



In the thick, gloomy, light and luxurious vegetation of 

 the Coal-Measures, no Apple-Tree reared its fruitful head among 

 " seedless ferns that rivalled forest trees in stature." No! this 

 was a dower of wealth and beauty reserved for a later epoch, 

 yet, so remote is that epoch that the origin of apple-tree c dture 

 is lost in mist. 



True it is that the Ancient Britians are said to have had 

 orchards, and still more certain is it that the Romans cultivated 

 the Apple Tree, which was not unknown to ancient Grreece, and 

 flourished according to Homer in the pleasant gardens of Alcin- 

 ous and Laertes, whilst Philip of Macedon and Alexander are 

 said to have had apples to their banquets all the year round. 

 Moreover the fabled garden of the Hesperides, whence came the 

 golden apples by which fair Atalanta lost the race and won a 

 lover, with all the manifold allusion to this fruit in the ancient 



