me and pass the night
with him, he promises him _mild_ apples and soft chestnuts,--_mitia
poma, castaneae molles_. I frequently pluck wild apples of so rich and
spicy a flavor that I wonder all orchardists do not get a scion from
that tree, and I fail not to bring home my pockets full. But perchance,
when I take one out of my desk and taste it in my chamber, I find it
unexpectedly crude,--sour enough to set a squirrel's teeth on edge and
make a jay scream.

These apples have hung in the wind and frost and rain till they have
absorbed the qualities of the weather or season, and thus are highly
_seasoned_, and they _pierce_ and _sting_ and _permeate_ us with
their spirit. They must be eaten in _season_, accordingly,--that is,
out-of-doors.

To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of these October fruits, it is
necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air. The
out-door air and exercise which the walker gets give a different tone to
his palate, and he craves a fruit which the sedentary would call harsh
and crabbed. They must be eaten in the fields, when your system is all
aglow with exercise, when the frosty weather nips your fingers, the wind
rattles the bare boughs or rustles the few remaining leaves, and the
jay is heard screaming around. What is sour in the house a bracing walk
makes sweet. Some of these apples might be labelled, "To be eaten in the
wind."

Of course no flavors are thrown away; they are intended for the taste
that is up to them. Some apples have two distinct flavors, and perhaps
one-half of them must be eaten in the house, the other out-doors. One
Peter Whitney wrote from Northborough in 1782, for the Proceedings of
the Boston Academy, describing an apple-tree in that town "producing
fruit of opposite qualities, part of the same apple being frequently
sour and the other sweet;" also some all sour, and others all sweet, and
this diversity on all parts of the tree.

There is a wild apple on Nawshawtuct Hill in my town which has to me a
peculiarly pleasant bitter tang, not perceived till it is three-quarters
tasted. It remains on the tongue. As you eat it, it smells exactly like
a squash-bug. It is a sort of triumph to eat and relish it.

I hear that the fruit of a kind of plum-tree in Provence is "called
_Prunes sibarelles_, because it is impossible to whistle after having
eaten them, from their sourness." But perhaps they were only eaten
in the house and in summer, and if trie