Comfort Me with Apples 193 
favorite plant of Lord Bacon’s day. Wordsworth 
wrote in jingling rhyme: — 
“ Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed 
Their snow-white blossoms on my head. 
With brightest sunshine round me spread 
Of spring’s unclouded weather. 
In this sequester’d nook how sweet 
To sit upon my orchard seat ; 
And flowers and birds once more to greet. 
My last year’s friends together.” 
The incomparable beauty of the Apple tree in 
full bloom has ever been sung by the poets, but 
even their words cannot fitly nor fully tell the delight 
to the senses of the close view of those exquisite 
pink and white domes, with their lovely opalescent 
tints, their ethereal fragrance; their beauty infinitely 
surpasses that of the vaunted Cherry plantations of 
Japan. In the hand the flowers show a distinct 
ruddiness, a promise of future red cheeks ; but a 
long vista of trees in bloom displays no tint of pink, 
the flowers seem purest white. Looking last May 
across the orchard at Hillside, adown the valley of 
the Hudson with its succession of blossoming 
orchards, we could paraphrase the words of Long- 
fellow’s Golden Legend: — 
“ The valley stretching below 
Is white with blossoming Apple trees, as if touched with lightest 
snow.” 
In the darkest night flowering Apple trees shine 
with clear radiance, and an orchard of eight hun- 
dred acres, such as may be seen in Niagara County, 
New York, shows a white expanse like a lake of 
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