Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set ForthEarle, Alice Morse
History
Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth
Earle, Alice Morse
Gardens; Landscape gardening
Thoreau christened the Apple trees of his acquaintance with appropriate
names in the _lingua vernacula_: the Truant's Apple, the Saunterer's
Apple, December Eating, Wine of New England, the Apple of the Dell in
the Wood, the Apple of the Hollow in the Pasture, the Railroad Apple,
the Cellar-hole Apple, the Frozen-thawed, and many more; these he loved
for their fruit; to them let me add the Playhouse Apple trees, loved
solely for their ingeniously twisted branches, an Apple tree of the
garden, often overhanging the flower borders. I recall their glorious
whiteness in the spring, but I cannot remember that they bore any fruit
save a group of serious little girls. I know there were no Apples on the
Playhouse Apple trees in my garden, nor on the one in Nelly Gilbert's or
Ella Partridge's garden. There is no play place for girls like an old
Apple tree. The main limbs leave the trunk at exactly the right height
for children to reach, and every branch and twig seems to grow and turn
only to form delightful perches for children to climb among and cling
to. Some Apple trees in our town had a copy of an Elizabethan garden
furnishing; their branches enclosed tree platforms about twelve feet
from the ground, reached by a narrow ladder or flight of steps. These
were built by generous parents for their children's playhouses, but
their approach of ladder was too unhazardous, their railings too
safety-assuring, to prove anything but conventional and uninteresting.
The natural Apple tree offered infinite variety, and a slight sense of
daring to the climber. Its possibility of accident was fulfilled; untold
number of broken arms and ribs--juvenile--were resultant from falls from
Apple trees.
[Illustration: Pressing out Cider in Old Hand Mill.]
One of Thoreau's Apples was the Green Apple (_Malus viridis_, or
_Cholera morbifera puerelis delectissima_). I know not for how many
centuries boys (and girls too) have eaten and suffered from green
apples. A description was written in 1684 which might have happened any
summer since; I quote it with reminiscent delight, for I have the same
love for the spirited relation that I had in my early youth when I
never, for a moment, in spite of the significant names, deemed the
entire book anything but a real story; the notion that _Pilgrim's
Progress_ was an allegory never entered my mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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