like a barberry-bush, so that the whole tree acquired a new character.
Even the topmost branches, instead of standing erect, spread and
drooped in all directions; and there were so many poles supporting the
lower ones, that they looked like pictures of banian-trees. As an old
English manuscript says, "The mo appelen the tree bereth the more sche
boweth to the folk."

Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits. Let the most beautiful or
the swiftest have it. That should be the "going" price of apples.

Between the fifth and twentieth of October I see the barrels lie under
the trees. And perhaps I talk with one who is selecting some choice
barrels to fulfil an order. He turns a specked one over many times
before he leaves it out. If I were to tell what is passing in my mind,
I should say that every one was specked which he had handled; for he
rubs off all the bloom, and those fugacious ethereal qualities leave
it. Cool evenings prompt the farmers to make haste, and at length I see
only the ladders here and there left leaning against the trees.

It would be well if we accepted these gifts with more joy and
gratitude, and did not think it enough simply to put a fresh load of
compost about the tree. Some old English customs are suggestive at
least. I find them described chiefly in Brand's "Popular Antiquities."
It appears that "on Christmas eve the farmers and their men in
Devonshire take a large bowl of cider, with a toast in it, and carrying
it in state to the orchard, they salute the apple-trees with much
ceremony, in order to make them bear well the next season." This
salutation consists in "throwing some of the cider about the roots of
the tree, placing bits of the toast on the branches," and then,
"encircling one of the best bearing trees in the orchard, they drink
the following toast three several times:--

"'Here's to thee, old apple-tree,
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats-full! caps-full!
Bushel, bushel, sacks-full!
And my pockets full, too! Hurra!'"

Also what was called "apple-howling" used to be practised in various
counties of England on New-Year's eve. A troop of boys visited the
different orchards, and, encircling the apple-trees, repeated the
following words:--

"Stand fast, root! bear well, top!
Pray God send us a good howling crop:
Every twig, apples big;
Every bow, apples enow