The American Garden. 



Vol. Xll. 



APRIL, i8gi. 



No. 



APPLE ORCHARDS OF MY YOUTH. 



A RAMHLE IN MEMORY THROUGH CONNECTICUT FIELDS. 



ES, I well remember the 

 old apple orchards of 

 m y boyhood. There 

 were no canker worms 

 in those days, no borers, 

 no apple maggot ; but 

 we always had the com- 

 mon apple worm here 

 in Connecticut, and the 

 tent caterpillar. But my mother, a native of cen- 

 tral New York, never saw a wormy apple till she 

 came to Connecticut in 1819. 



In those days — seventy years ago — most of the 

 orchards were native fruit and very vigorous, and 

 there were no borers to sap their vitality. There 

 were a few old grafted trees, and an occasional 

 young orchard was being planted, of mostly grafted 

 fruit. On my farm, orchards were planted in the 

 last century, mostly of native fruit, but containing 

 a few body-grafted trees. I remember four Ameri- 

 can Golden Russets, twoWestfield Seek-no- Furthers 

 and two Pearmains. These, in my boyhood days, 

 were large trees, bearing abundantly of choice fruit. 

 They stood in turf, mowed once or twice a year, and 

 not plowed during the present century. 



One only of these old friends, a Seek-no-Further, 

 planted, according to tradition, by my great-grand- 

 mother about 1760, while her husband was plowing, 

 now survives. The ice and winds, that laid low its 

 comrades, have made sad havoc with its branches, 

 and the blue bird and the woodpecker have found a 

 home in its hollows. It still bears good fruit, about 

 two barrels this last year. Some of its fruit won the 

 first prize at New Orleans in 1885, as the product of 

 an apple tree one hundred years old. What a 

 cluster of memories it holds ! No other living thing 



on the farm has so many. Seven generations have 

 partaken of its fruit, have climbed in its branches 

 and rested in its shade. The perfume of its opening 

 buds has refreshed us in spring, and its fruitage has 

 gladdened us in autumn. The song of the sparrow 

 and robin in its boughs has wakened us in the 

 morning and cheered us in our daily toil. The hang- 

 bird has swung its cradle from the outmost branch, 

 and the squirrel, with one eye open to mischief and 

 one for self-protection, has chattered and gambolled 

 among its gnarled branches, and sought shelter in its 

 heart ; and while we have looked upon it, what has it 

 seen of us ? It has seen generation after generation 

 come and go, gathered home, even as the mower 

 gathers the harvest. A veritable patriarch, it still 

 baffles wind and snow. Now and then a broken 

 branch has been lopped off, but it has had no other 

 care. Year by year the fruit is beaten or shaken 

 off rudely, and yet it clings to the old homestead 

 with steadfast love ! 



" Cotemporaneous trees, "to an old man, become 

 doubly interesting, but this one covers not one but 

 many lifetimes. While ancestral trees deserve 

 our regard and care, those of our own planting, 

 like our own children, have special claims upon us. 

 The man who plants a tree or an orchard and leaves 

 it entirely without care or protection is like a parent 

 setting adrift his children upou the world, without 

 compass or anchor ; and as these moral shipwrecks 

 only fail to shock us because the wave of time cov- 

 ers them from sight, so good husbandry removes 

 the trees it cannot care for. But have you never 

 seen an old neglected orchard, where time or fire 

 has removed the adjacent home, each tree infested 

 with suckers, the branches moss-covered and bro- 

 ken, struggling with the golden-rod and blackberry, 



