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THE APPLE. 



and glad through so many winters and summers, who 

 have blossomed till the air about them is sweeter 

 than elsewhere, and borne fruit till the grass beneath 

 them has become thick and soft from human contact, 

 and who have nourished robins and finches in their 

 branches till they have a tender brooding look. The 

 ground, the turf, the atmosphere of an old orchard, 

 seem several stages nearer to man than that of the 

 adjoining field, as if the trees had given back to the 

 soil more than they had taken from it ; as if they had 

 tempered the elements and attracted all the genial and 

 beneficent influences in the landscape around. 



An apple orchard is sure to bear you several crops 

 beside the apple. There is the crop of sweet and ten- 

 der reminiscences dating from childhood and spanning 

 the seasons from May to October, and making the 

 orchard a sort of outlying part of the household. You 

 have played there as a child, mused there as a youth 

 or lover, strolled there as a thoughtful, sad-eyed man. 

 Your father, perhaps, planted the trees, or reared them 

 from the seed, and you yourself have pruned and 

 grafted them, and worked among them, till every sep- 

 arate tree has a peculiar history and meaning in your 

 mind. Then there is the never-failing crop of birds — 

 robins, goldfinches, king-birds, cedar-birds, hair-birds, 

 orioles, starlings — all nesting and breeding in its 

 branches, and fitly described by Wilson Flagg, as 

 "Birds of the Garden and Orchard." Whether the 

 pippin and sweetbough bear or not, the "punctual 



