THE PLAINS OF NAUSET. 
29 
apple-trees not higher than a man’s head; one whole 
orchard, indeed, where all the fruit could have been 
gathered by a man standing on the ground; but you 
could hardly creep beneath the trees. Some, which the 
owners told me were twenty years old, were only three 
and a half feet high, spreading at six inches from the 
ground five feet each way, and being withal surrounded 
with boxes of tar to catch the cankerworms, they looked 
like plants in flower-pots, and as if they might be taken 
into 'she house in the winter. In another place, I saw 
somo not much larger than currant-bushes; yej; the 
owner told me that they had borne a barrel and a half 
of apples that fall. If they had been placed close to¬ 
gether, I could have cleared them all at' a jump. I 
measured some near the Highland Light in Truro, which 
had been taken from the shrubby woods thereabouts 
when young, and grafted. One, which had been set ten 
years, was on an average eighteen inches high, and 
spread nine feet with a flat top. It had borne one bushel 
of apples two years before. Another, probably twenty 
years old from the seed, was five feet high, and spread 
eighteen feet, branching, as usual, at the ground, so that 
you could not creep under it. This bore a barrel of 
apples two years before. The owner of these trees in¬ 
variably used the personal pronoun in speaking of them; 
as, “ I got him out of the woods, but he does n’t bear.” 
The largest that I saw in that neighborhood was nine 
feet high to the topmost leaf, and spread thirty-three 
feet, branching at the ground five ways. 
In one yard I observed a single, very healthy-looking 
tree, while all the rest were dead or dying. The occu¬ 
pant said that his father had manured all but that one 
with blackfish. 
