CHAPTER I 

 THE APPLE {Mains malus: MalacecR) 



THE apple is of all fruits the most entirely taken for 

 granted. It has become as much a matter of 

 course as the universe itself and just as naturally stands at 

 the head of the fruits as does the sun among the heavenly 

 bodies (of familiar, "speaking" aquaintance) . And, as 

 its first letter gives it front rank in the alphabet and primers 

 so has the name of apple appealed first — foremost — to the 

 imaginations of men and the fruit to their palates from 

 the time of the earliest relation (not to say actual occur- 

 rence!) of the story of Adam and Eve. Otherwise, why 

 the apple instead of some one of the numerous delicious 

 and more delicate southern fruits? It is substantial, 

 firm, yet gracious and sunny; eminently practical; thus 

 one may say, fitted in every way to stand the wear and tear 

 of the ages. In poetry, folk-lore, and even history, no 

 fruit has been more often referred to ; its beauty and whole- 

 someness more constantly eulogised; standing out as the 

 type of pomological excellence. Men it is who chiefly 

 have written poetry and history, however divided their 

 responsibility in the creation of beauty and facts, and men, 

 like the apple, are eminently practical. Yet are men's 

 hearts and minds not always won through the gastronomic 

 channel or the appeal of the practical. The wild crab, 

 supposed to be the earliest type of apple, lacked as a fruit 

 some of the excellence of evolution, but there is yet, in 

 these later ages, no flower, wild or cultivated, which can 

 rival the wild crab-apple blossom in rare fragrance and 



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