OUR COMMON FRUIT TREES 



In other parts of the country this ceremony took 

 place on Twelfth-Night-Eve, and roasted apples 

 took the place of toast. The song varied somewhat 

 in different parts of the country but everywhere 

 fecundity was invoked. Putting roasted apples 

 in ale was another old English custom. Shakes- 

 peare alludes to it in "Midsummer Night's Dream" 

 where Puck says : 



Sometimes I lurk in a gossip's bowl, 



In very likeness of a roasted crab; 

 And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob. 



And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale. 



But a large volume would be required to record the 

 folk-lore and facts that have accumulated round our 

 premier fruit and then much would perforce be 

 omitted. 



The species now considered the principal parent 

 of our favourite orchard fruit is known as Mains 

 pumila, and is characterized by having its branchlets, 

 leaves, inflorescence, and sepals covered with woolly 

 hairs. It is considered to be wild from southeastern 

 Europe to the Caucasus. Another species from which 

 a few kinds of apple have been derived is M. syl- 

 vesiris, which is nearly smooth and hairless in all its 

 parts, and is regarded as indigenous in western and 

 central Europe. The apples of the Orient have been 



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