XVII 

 THE APPRAISAL OF THE APPLE-TREE 



Now, therefore, in these sixteen little chapters have 

 I tried to explain what I feel about the apple-tree. It is 

 a version to my friend, the reader, not a treatise. 



As the interpretation is in the realm of the sensibil- 

 ities, so do I aim not directly at concreteness. Yet as 

 it is now the fashion to "score" all our products by a 

 scale of "points," I make a reasonable concession to it. 

 But I do not like the scoring of the fruit independently 

 of the tree on which it grew as if the fruit were only a 

 commodity. I know we cannot bring the tree to the 

 exhibition-room, yet the perfect measure, nevertheless, is 

 the tree and the fruit together. In these later times we 

 have said much against the use of the museum specimen 

 to the exclusion of the living object in its natural place: 

 let us be cautious, then, that we do not forget apple-trees 

 in our studies of apples. 



Here I shall not arrange numerical scales of points 

 for the apple-tree. Sufificient for this occasion is the 

 naming of the points, letting the reader place his own 

 percentage-value on each of them ; for I am trying to 

 teach, not to instruct. 



Yet I must insert, for the reader's benefit, certain good 

 rules and scores that have been adopted for the "judg- 



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