THE APPLE 35 
of cutting off the tap-roots to facilitate transplanting. 
Where the soil is poor or badly drained, or the trees 
are crowded, the bark is often. lichen-covered, and the 
gnarled and knotted branches are the chief habitat, 
or “host,” as the botanists facetiously term it, of that 
unwelcome guest, the Mistletoe. The parasite grows 
as freely upon the crab-apple as on the cultivated 
varieties, and preying on the life-fluids of the tree, is 
able to maintain its own verdure all the year round, 
whilst it is not unfrequently absolutely fatal to young 
Apple-trees in our western orchard counties. 
The Wild Apple has its dwarf shoots irregularly 
curved, rough with crescent-shaped leaf-scars, and 
sometimes almost thorny, though not distinctly so 
as in the Pear. There are generally three princi- 
pal branches, which spring from the trunk at an 
angle of from ninety to a hundred and twenty 
degrees, so as to produce a habit more spreading 
than that of the Pear; and the subsequent branches 
and twigs spread out from one another at angles 
slightly exceeding a right angle, giving the tree an 
irregularly rounded head, which is so characteristic 
as to be recognisable at a distance. 
The leaves make their appearance rather before 
the flowers, which do not generally open before May, 
by which time the Pear has usually lost its blossoms 
and completed the growth of its foliage. “The leaves 
of the Apple have at first a brownish tinge, and 
though individually pretty, are not effective among 
the flowers, whilst they subsequently become a dull 
darkish green, which has not much beauty. They 
are oblong and rounded, with an abrupt point— 
