MALUS MITIS.— SWEET APPLE. 
Class XII. ICO SAN DR I A. Order II. PENTAGYNIA. 
Natural Order, POM AGILE.— THE APPLE TRIBE. 
*Tiu: Apple is a spreading tree, the leaves ovate, the flowers in terminating umbels, produced from the wood 
of the former year ; but more generally from very short shoots or spurs, from wood of two years growth. 
The fruit is roundish, umbilicate at the base, and of an acid flavour. In its wild state, it is termed the crab, 
and is then armed with thorns, with smaller leaves, flowers, and fruit, and the pulp of the latter extremely 
acid. It is a native of most countries of Europe in its wild state, and the improved varieties form an im- 
portant branch of culture in Britain, France, Germany, and America, for the kitchen, the table, and for the 
manufacture of cider. From whence we at first received the cultivated apple is unknown, but in all proba- 
bility it was introduced by the Romans, to whom twenty-two varieties were known in Pliny’s time, and 
afterwards, the stock of varieties greatly increased at the Norman conquest. According to Stow, carp and 
pepins were brought into England by Mascal, who wrote on fruit-trees in 1572. The apple tree is supposed 
by some to attain a great age. Haller mentions some trees in Herefordshire that attained a thousand years, 
and were highly prolific ; but Knight considers two hundred years as the ordinary duration of a healthy 
tree, grafted on a crab stock, and planted in a strong tenacious, soil. Speedily mentions a tree, in an orchard 
at Burton-] oyce, near Nottingham, of about sixty years old, with branches extending from seven to nine 
yards round the hole, which in 1752, produced upwards of 100 pecks of apples. Of all the different fruits 
which are produced in Britain, none can be brought to so high a degree of perfection, with so little trouble, 
and of no other are there so many excellent varieties in general cultivation, calculated for almost every soil, 
situation, and climate, which our island affords. Very good apples are grown in the Highlands and Orkneys, 
and even in the Shetland Isles, as well as in Devonshire and Cornwall; some sorts are ripe in the begin- 
ning of July, and others, which ripen later, will keep till June. Unlike other fruits, those which ripen 
latest are the best. 
For pies, tarts, sauces, and the dessert, the use of the apple is familiar to every one. Duduit, of Ma- 
zeres, has found that one third of boiled apple pulp, baked with two thirds of flour, having been properly 
fermented with yeast for twelve hours, makes excellent bread, full of eyes, and extremely palatable and light. 
The fermented juice forms cider, a substitute both for grape wine and malt liquor. In confectionary, it is 
used for comfits, compotes, and marmalades, jellies, pastes, tarts, &c. In medicines, verjuice, or the juice of 
crabs, is used for sprains, and as an astringent and repellent; and with a proper addition of sugar, Withering 
thinks, a very grateful liquor might be made with it, little inferior to Rhenish wine. Ligbtfoot affirms, that 
the crab mixed with cultivated apples, or even alone, if thoroughly ripe, will make a sound, masculine wine. 
The apple when ripe, is laxative, and the juice is excellent in dysentery ; boiled or roasted apples fortify a 
weak stomach, and they are equally efficacious in putrid and malignant fevers, with the juice of lemons or 
currants. In perfumery, the pulp of apples beat up with lard, forms pomatum : and Bose observes, that 
the prolonged stratification of apples, with elder flowers, in a close vessel, gives the former an odour of musk, 
extremely agreeable. In dyeing, the bark produces a yellow colour, and in general economy, the wood of 
the tree is used for turning, and various purposes, where hardness, compactness, and variegation of colour, 
are objects. 
Nor does apple-wine, as the Germans call cyder, lack its poet. Philips’ poem on this subject, is well 
known, and though it is no longer supposed to rival the Georgies, it still merits the praise of acquracy, as 
well as a tolerable facility of diction. Dr. Johnson was told by Miller, the famous gardener and botanist, 
“that there were many books written on the same subject, in prose, which do not contain so much truth as 
that poem.” a 
After asserting the pre-eminence of the Redstreak apple, Philips says : 
See! the numbers flow 
Easy, whilst, cheer’d with her nectareous juice, 
Her’s and my country’s praises I exalt. 
Hail Herefordian plant, that dost disdain 
All other fields ! Heaven’s sweetest blessing, hail ! 
Be thou the copious matter of my song, 
And thy choice nectar, on which always waits 
Laughter, and sport, and care-beguiling wit, 
And friendship, chief delight of human life. 
What should we wish for more ? or why, in quest 
Of foreign vintage, insincere and mixt, 
Traverse the extremest world ? Why tempt the rage 
Of the rough ocean, when our native glebe 
Imparts, from bounteous womb, annual recruits 
Of wine delectable, that far surmounts 
Gallic or Latin grapes, or those that see 
The setting sun near Calpe’s towering height’ 
Nor let the Rhodian, nor the Lesbian vines 
Vaunt their rich must, nor let Tokay contend 
For Sovereignty: Phanseus’ self must bow 
To th’ Ariconian vales. 
Cider, Bvuk i. 
» Lives of the Poets. 
For the greater part of the following article, we are indebted to two of Mr. Loudon’s excellent works, and the Penny Magazine. 
