THE APPLE-TREE. 77 



and was in the present century reduced to a science by the 

 experiments of Knight. 



Grafting is an ancient art known even to Pliny, the naturalist, 

 and Virgil advises to " graft the tender shoot, thy children's 

 children shall enjoy the fruit." Dwarf trees grafted on the 

 English Paradise stock are certainly more handsome and profit- 

 able in small orchards and in gardens. Cleft grafting with the 

 razor-back scion is very successful closed up in soft unctuous 

 Cornish clay. I still preserve among my relics a minature 

 pattern-graft of this kind, made for me years ago on the high 

 seas from the Ship's broom, by an Editor of the Toronto Globe, 

 who had been a mighty gardiner in his tim.e at the Mount Hope 

 Nurseries, Genessie Co., New York. I saw in Ontario a thriving 

 orchard raised from pips, not a single tree of which was grafted. 



An orchard is the symbol of peace and plenty, but perhaps 

 the just value of the apple as an article of diet will in England 

 be more fully recognised by coming generations, when the 

 carnivorous tastes of our country people shall have somewhat 

 abated, as in the upward progress they are sure to do. 



Does not the success of the London restaurants, the "Alpha" 

 and the " Garden," point to the time when Pythagoras, Shelley, 

 and Professor Newman's School shall be vindicated ? 



The learned John Langhorne writes clieerily to Hannah 

 More after supping on roast apple and mulled wine 



Workmen in England, in famine times, have done better 

 on roast apples than on roast potatoes, and Dr. Johnson declared 

 that he knew a clergyman who brought up a large family on 

 apple dumplings. If it sounds Apocryphal, see Boswell's "Life." 



Eor winter use apples should be sweated, wiped dry, and 

 packed in large, well scalded earthen jars closed tightly down, 

 when they will keep their pristine qualities for a long time. 



It is worthy of remark that nature puts on her gayest dress 

 when performing her most important functions. 



I remember one spring day in Virginia, where nothing 

 reminded me of England, where the very soil,uniformly red, looked 

 strange : where the flora and fauna were foreign to my eyes, and 

 where the orchards were dressed not with ore weed indeed but 

 with tobacco ! I was curious enough to smell the apple blossom 



