Apple

“ The apple is the commonest and yet the most varied and beautiful of fruits. A dish of them is as becoming to the centre-table in winter as was the vase of flowers in the summer,—a bouquet of spitzenbergs and greenings and northern spies. A rose when it blooms, the apple is a rose when it ripens. ”

“ THE UNLUCKY APPLE
'Twas the apple that in Eden
Caused our father's primal fall;
And the Trojan War, remember—
'Twas an apple caused it all.
So for weeks I've hesitated,
You can guess the reason why,
For I want to tell my darling
She's the apple of my eye. ”

“ APPLE.—Whether the Apple, the Orange, the Pomegranate, the Fig, the Banana, or the Grape was the actual fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which tempted Eve in Paradise, will possibly never be settled; but it is certain that not only is the Apple mystical above all the fruits of the earth, but it is the supreme fruit. To it has been given the Latin name Pomona, which is the generic name of fruit, just as Pomona is the goddess of all the fruit trees. ”

“ Our orchard is fast ripening; and the apples and great thumping pears strew the grass in such abundance that it becomes almost a trouble—though a pleasant one—to gather them. This happy breeze, too, shakes them down, as if it flung fruit to us out of the sky; and often, when the air is perfectly still, I hear the quiet fall of a great apple. ”

“ The nuts are ripe, the corn is gathered, the apples stand in high pyramids in the four corners of the orchards,—one pile russet-brown, one rosy red, another deep yellow, and the fourth green with the color of the famous greening, the best apple in the world for cider and tart. ”

“ The apple is, beyond all question, the American fruit. It stands absolutely alone and unapproachable, grapes notwithstanding. Originating in another hemisphere, neither in its own country, nor in any other to which it has been introduced, has it flourished as in America. It is conceded in Europe that, for size, soundness, flavor, and brilliancy of coloring, the American apple stands first,—a long way first. ”

“ My theme being the Wild Apple, I will merely glance at some of the seasons in the annual growth of the cultivated apple, and pass on to my special province.
The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most beautiful of any tree's, so copious and so delicious to both sight and scent. The walker is frequently tempted to turn and linger near some more than usually handsome one, whose blossoms are two-thirds expanded. ”

“ There is no apple like the one that comes up fresh from the cellar on a winter night, cool, crisp, solid yet ready. It is the fruit of the home fireside. I often wonder whether one in a hundred of the people know what a really good and timely apple is. ”

“ The apple-trees grow tall and slender, the blossoms break out on the top of each branch in a cluster; the fruit, when ripe, is about the size of small crabs, and shaped like golden-pippins, without any acidity, but the sweetness rather resembles turnips than the well-flavoured apple. ”

“ One likes to linger on an apple, to sit by a fireside to eat it, to munch it waiting on a log when there is no hurry, to have another apple with which to invite a friend.
Now I am not thinking of the Ben Davis apple or any of its kind. I do not want to be doomed to one variety of apple, or even to half a dozen kinds, and particularly I do not want a poor one. There are enough good apples, if we can get them. The days of the amateur fruit-growers seem to be passing. At least we do not hear much of them in society or in many of the meetings of horticulturists. ”

“ Apples.—The origin and first home of the apple, is unknown. If tradition is to be believed, it was the inauspicious fruit to which may be traced all the miseries of mankind. In pictures of the temptation in the garden of Eden, our mother Eve is generally represented as holding an apple in her hand. ”

“ Thompson has enumerated upwards of 1400 varieties of the apple alone, the greater portion of which, however, are proved to be unworthy of cultivation for any purpose whatever.
The apple is a very wholesome fruit. In its raw state it is highly esteemed in the dessert, and when either roasted, boiled, or in pies, it forms an excellent and nutritious food. Dr. Johnson says he knew a clergyman, of small income, who brought up a family very reputably, which he chiefly fed on apple dumplings! ”

“ This delicious table apple is a universal favorite with all who can appreciate delicacy of flavor and fineness of flesh in an apple, and yet it is not a profitable variety for orchard planting, because the fruit is very apt to be imperfect. ”

“ The apple is the representative fruit, and owes most to culture in its ancient varieties of quince, pear, pomegranate, citron, peach; as it comprehended all originally. Of these, pears and peaches have partaken more largely of man's essence, and may be called creations of his, being civilized in the measure he is himself; as are the apple and the grape. These last are more generally diffused over the earth, and their history embraces that of the origin and progress of mankind, the apple being coeval with man ”

“ The seed that fell off first would be—but ’twas too late now.
“The apple,” continued Judge Menefee, charging his jury, “in modern days occupies, though undeservedly, a lowly place in our esteem. Indeed, it is so constantly associated with the culinary and the commercial that it is hardly to be classed among the polite fruits. But in ancient times this was not so. Biblical, historical, and mythological lore abounds with evidences that the apple was the aristocrat of fruits. We still say ‘the apple of the eye’ when we wish to describe something superlatively precious. ”

“ The Ladies’ Sweeting, we consider the finest winter sweet apple for the dessert, yet known or cultivated in this country (America.) Its handsome appearance, delightful perfume, sprightly flavor, and the long time in which it remains in perfection, render it universally admired wherever it is known, and no garden should be without it.
The fruit is large, roundish-ovate. Skin, very smooth, covered with red next the sun, but pale yellowish-green in the shade, with broken stripes of pale red. ”

“ You took the piece of pie up in your hand and pointed the sharp end toward you, and gently crowded it into your face. It didn't require much pressure either.
And there were always apples, real apples. I think they must make apples in factories nowadays. They taste like it. These were real ones, picked off the trees. Out at grandpap's they had bellflowers, and winesaps, and seek-no-furthers, and, I think, sheep-noses, and one kind of apple that I can't find any more, though I have sought it carefully. It was the finest apple I ever set a tooth in. It was the juiciest and the spiciest apple. ”

“ I know the look of an apple that is roasting and sizzling on a hearth on a winter's evening, and I know the comfort that comes of eating it hot, along with some sugar and a drench of cream. I know the delicate art and mystery of so cracking hickory-nuts and walnuts on a flatiron with a hammer that the kernels will be delivered whole, and I know how the nuts, taken in conjunction with winter apples, cider and doughnuts, make old people's tales and old jokes sound fresh and crisp and enchanting, and juggle an evening away before you know what went with the time. ”

“ Apple-Blossom in Apple
Cut the apple into thin slices from side to side through the core. Take one of the slices from near the middle of the apple and hold it up to the light, so that the light will shine through it, then look carefully and you will see in the centre a perfect pattern of the apple-blossom you gathered from the tree (Fig. 212) . Apple-seeds form the centre of the flower. The petals, five in number, are of the flesh of the fruit. They are of the same shape and size as the real blossom. ”

“ For an Apple is in itself a little Universe; the Seed, hotter than the other parts thereof, is its Sun, which diffuses about it self that natural Heat which preserves its Globe: And in the Onion, the Germ is the little Sun of that little World, which vivifies and nourishes the vegetative Salt of that little mass. ”

“ In the popular tales of all countries, the Apple is represented as the magical fruit par excellence. The Celtic priests held the Apple sacred, and in Gaelic, Norse, German, and Italian stories it is constantly introduced as a mysterious and enchanted fruit. ”

“ They had first-rate apples, yet it was curious that the same trees produced an apple having a slightly different flavour to what it had in this country. You could always distinguish an American apple by its peculiar piquancy—a sub-acid piquancy, a wild strawberry piquancy, a sort of woodland, forest, backwoods delicacy of its own. ”

“ An excellent apple for drying, for family use and for market. Tree thrifty, upright, productive, early [468] bearer; limbs long and parallel while young; shoots dark, stout; foliage large, broad, rather pale.
Fruit large, often very large, globular-oblate, somewhat conic, regular; Surface smooth, often polished, yellow, almost wholly obscured with marbled dull red, and darker stripes that are often lost in the depth of tint; Dots generally small, indented; often a slight bloom covers the fruit, but it is easily removed, when the skin appears to be polished. ”

“ APPLE TRIFLE. Scald some apples, pass them through a sieve, and make a layer of the pulp at the bottom of a dish; mix the rind of half a lemon grated, and sweeten with sugar. Or mix half a pint of milk, half a pint of cream, and the yolk of an egg. Scald it over the fire, and stir it all the time without boiling; lay it over the apple pulp with a spoon, and put on it a whip prepared the day before.
APPLE WATER. Cut two large apples in slices, and pour a quart of boiling water on them, or on roasted apples. Strain it well, and sweeten it lightly. When cold, it is an agreeable drink in a fever. ”

“ A very rude method has sometimes been pursued in thinning the superabundance of fruit upon apple trees. It appears so very Gothic that its description may only excite a smile, when it is stated that it consists in threshing the tree with a long slender pole, by which a portion of the fruit is cast to the ground. ”

“ Few fruits can be utilized in as many ways as can the apple. In addition to the common use of the fresh fruit out of hand and of the fresh, sweet juice as cider, this "King of Fruits" can be cooked, baked, dried, canned, and made into jellies and other appetizing dishes, to enumerate all of which would be to prepare a list pages long. Few who have tasted once want to be without their apple sauce and apple pies in season, not to mention the crisp, juicy specimens to eat out of hand by the open fireplace in the long winter evenings. ”

“ A very superior dessert fruit; good for all purposes, and seems to do well everywhere. Its excellence has caused it to be called, particularly, a gentleman's apple, though quite acceptable to the farmers' boys.
Tree of rather slender growth; hence top-grafted in the orchard and stock-grafted in the nursery to produce [680] early results; Spreading, rather drooping, productive; Shoots slender, light brown, buds small; Foliage rather sparse, grayish.
Fruit medium, round or oblong, conic, truncated, regular; Surface very smooth, waxy yellow, wholly covered brilliant dark red, mixed and striped ”

“ An apple has the taste of an apple, the odor of an apple, the texture of an apple, the pressure of an apple, the sound of an apple when it falls on the ground, and the color of an apple when it is seen. ”

“ Apple trees are grease-banded and sprayed systematically by advanced fruit-growers to prevent or check the attacks of destructive insects. Far more attention is being paid to the selection of varieties of apples and pears having colour, size, flavour, keeping qualities, and other attributes to meet the tastes of the public, and to compete with the beautiful fruit that comes from the United States and Canada. ”

“ This apple is equally useful for the table and other purposes of economy; as it not only affords excellent cyder, but also, when dry, a very palatable dish: it may be kept fresh during the greater part of the winter.—The tree is of vigorous growth, and bears abundant fruit. ”

“ In tree-apple, the particular sort of apple meant is denoted by the word tree, and if there were in our gardens various sorts of plants called apples, of which some grew along the ground and others upon trees, such a word as tree-apple would be required in order to be opposed to earth-apple, or ground-apple, or some word of the kind. ”

“ The apple.—In the apple (Fig. 143) we have an example of a fruit in the formation of which the receptacle has taken a large share. Even in the flower, the five carpels of the pistil are buried in the [Pg 180] receptacle, and as the seeds (pips) ripen, the receptacle swells until it composes the greater part of the fruit and at last becomes sweet and fleshy. The carpels with the contained seeds constitute the core. The withered sepals are still to be seen at the top of the fruit. The structure of the pear is quite similar to that of the apple. ”

“ The apple is universally allowed to be the most useful of all fruits; and it is certain that there is no fruit more extensively cultivated. The list of apples is as numerous as that of peas; and it is almost as difficult to make a selection from. Apples are, however, generally divided into three kinds; the dessert or eating apples, the kitchen or baking apples, and the cider apples. The last are good for nothing but to make cider, and can never be mistaken ”