Ripeness

“ of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. ”

“ The common disappearance of these bitter substances as the seed or fruit ripens adds to the attractiveness of the material for food for animals at the proper stage of ripeness to provide for wider distribution of the seeds for further propagation. ”

“ They are Stored in many ways in the field, but success depends so much upon the season, particular variety, ripeness, and the freedom from injuries by fungi and insects, that uniform results are rarely secured by any method. ”

“ And when the green, grassy blade has been succeeded by the ear, can you ripen it? It will be ripened; but can you do it? You know you cannot; you can have no finger in the actual process, though you may promote the conditions under which it is carried on. Life is a mystery; growth is a mystery; ripening is a mystery: and these three mysteries are as fountains sealed against all intrusion. How comes it that there is within the ripe seed the preparations for another sowing and another growth? ”

“ Seed, stalk, flower,—for as yet the fruit eludes our grasp,—and whether we had best eat it or plant it is uncertain. At any rate, when it is mature it drops to the ground, and if it is not disturbed springs again. Some dig up the root, some sever the stalk, some pluck the flower, some gather the kernel; but all equally interrupt the order of Nature. The wise incline to make an innocent use of all, and regard each as one of the phases of the flower. ”

“ We are now reduced to browsing on buds and twigs, and methinks with this diet and this cold, we shall appear to the stall-fed thinkers like those unkempt cattle in meadows now, grazing the withered grass.
I think the change to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a late, more perfect, and final maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits, and not to that of green leaves, etc., which merely serve a purpose. The word ripe is thought by some to be derived from the verb to reap, so that what is ripe is ready to be reaped. ”

“ Allow me to remind you that very much fruit is never picked; some gets nipped in the blossom; some gets worm-eaten and falls to the ground; some rots on the trees before it ripens; some, too slow in ripening, gets bitten by the early frosts of autumn; while some rich, rare, ripe apples hang unpicked, frozen and worthless on the leafless trees of winter! ”

“ But nothing can be so absurd and unnatural than the practice of some, who will take away the leaves from the fruit, to hasten its ripening. The leaves are the lungs of the plants; the conductors and elevators of sap; and nothing can be more injurious than to take them away from the fruit at the very time when they are most needed. The consequence of such an unwise course will be the wilting and withering of the bunches, and, should they ripen at all, they will be deficient in flavor. Good fruit must ripen in the shade, only thus will it attain its full perfection. ”

“ Why are some clothed with leaves when the others are scarcely budding? Wherefore, in certain genera, do the flowers appear before the leaves?
Some authorities assert,—but facts show it to be a purely gratuitous supposition,—that the flower, which, with the fruit, seems to be the goal or object of vegetation, demands a greater activity on the part of the sap. But, in truth, many trees and shrubs, such as the poplar, the willow, and the hazel, flourish at an epoch when the sap is barely aroused from its protracted lethargy. ”

“ The premature ripening of the fruit, the spotted skin, the deep color about the pit, the appearance on the tree of adventitious shoots, slender, and bearing yellowish leaves, all prove conclusively that we have need to beware of danger, and speedily to destroy every vestige of such trees from our orchards. ”

“ The fruit has grown heavy; it drops and falls to the ground,—it dies; but the seed still lives,—and therein lies the germ of a ‘possibility’ of some future plant, with its luxuriant foliage and its fruit. ”

“ Let such plants alone for another year's trial. Then [Pg 432] if they do no better, dig them up and destroy them. Once in a while they prove to be all right, but often they are worthless.
Learn to tell a variety by a careful examination of the plant at different times during the season. Fix the general color of the leaf in your mind, its shape and size. Notice whether the fruit stems are long or short, whether the blossoms are above the leaves, in plain sight, or are hidden below. Are there many fruit buds to the stalk, or but few? Are the blossoms pistillate or staminate? ”

“ Another planter observes that “when a plant begins to ripen, it will gradually assume a ‘piebald’ or spotted appearance. As the ripening advances, the spots will become more distinct and individualized. When the spots can be distinguished at the distance of 10 steps, and the leaves of the plant turn down, become stiff to the touch, and their ends curl under, the plant is ripe, and should be cut. From the moment it has arrived at maturity, it begins to decay. Remember that all the plants in your crop are to be hung after they are cut—hung 73on something, and by something. ”

“ Oh, fringed gentians, asters, ironwort, every fall flower, leaves from every tree and vine, what makes them change colour, abandoned bird nests, winter quarters of caterpillars and insects, what becomes of the butterflies and grasshoppers—just myriads of stuff. ”

“ Having tasted fruit,
She scorns a pasture withering to the root.
She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten
The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten.
She leaves them bitten when she has to fly. ”

“ Of course the principal reason for this is the plain, practical one, that fruit should not be trampled on, and had better perhaps be put a little out of easy reach than too near the hand, so that it may not be gathered wantonly or without some little trouble, and may be waited for until it is properly ripe: while the plants meant to be trampled on have small and multitudinous seed, hard and wooden, which may be shaken and scattered about without harm. ”

“ The people knew of other plants that were useful for food, and the season for their ripening, and, believing that the fruit of this strange plant would ripen in its proper time, they arranged to guard and protect it carefully, awaiting with patience the time of its ripening and further revelation of its purpose. ”

“ You must gather your fruit when it is ripe, and not before, else will it wither and be tough and sowre. All fruit generally are ripe, when they beginne to fall. For Trees doe as all other bearers doe, when their yong ones are ripe, they will waine them. The Doue her Pigeons, the Cony her Rabbets, and women their children. Some fruit tree sometimes getting a taint in the setting with a frost or euill wind, will cast his fruit vntimely, but not before he leaue giuing them sap, or they leaue growing. Cherries, &c. ”

“ So when fruits are thoroughly ripened, they become, with respect to the parent plant, dead substances, and, however strongly attached before, are then thrown off as extraneous bodies. Their stalks fade or wither, though the life of the adjoining branch continues unimpaired, and a line of separation is soon drawn. In a poor soil, or unfavourable climate, a bunch or spike which should naturally consist of a considerable number of flowers, bears perhaps not half so many. ”

“ But this beautiful tree has its grudging enemy, and upon the small thorn-like excrescences with which its stem is covered, a parasite is apt to fix itself, which by degrees embraces, and finally kills the tree. ”

“ If it happens to be ripe, the inside is devoured at once, if not, it is dropped and another is sought out, and a quarrel is picked with the discoverer of a ripe one, and loud and shrill is the barking, and fierce the growling and snapping which is heard on these occasions. ”

“ Slowly failing maples glowed first with the hectic flush of disease, but gradually warmer hues stole into the face of Nature, for it is the dying of the leaves that causes the changes of color in the foliage. ”

“ The ripening process, which means the development and maturing of the seeds, produces a heavy strain upon the growing plant, the life and yield of the plant being in proportion to the number of fruits which are allowed to ripen. If no fruits are allowed to come to maturity the plants will remain green and in an active vegetative condition longer and will produce a much larger aggregate number of fruits. ”

“ The taking off a circular piece of the bark from a branch of a pear-tree causes the fruit of that branch to ripen sooner by a fortnight, as I have more than once observed. The wounds made in apples by insects occasion those apples to ripen sooner ”

“ The leaf dies down, and the first frond of the new fern peeps above ground, closely coiled up, as you have often seen, if you have been through the woods in spring-time. The earliest forms of vegetable life, then, brought forth by the earth at the word of God were the plants which have no seeds: botanists have divided such plants into groups—the seaweeds and lichens, the mosses, and the ferns. ”

“ Then did the Almighty will introduce, one after another, the germs of plants,—first of all, the lower orders, the ferns, which seek the shade, and the lichens, which grow in damp and dark recesses, mosses, which cling to bare rocks, living almost on air and water alone,—everything which needed not bright sunlight to invigorate it nor soil to cling to. ”

“ To wild trees, as compared with cultivated ones, belong the special properties of fruiting late, of greater vigour, of abundance of fruit, produced if not matured; for they ripen their fruit later, and in general their time of flowering and making growth is later; also they are more vigorous in growth, and so, though they produce more fruit, they ripen it less ”

“ The pupil should know that every spot or injury on a leaf or stem is caused by something,—as an insect, a fungus, wind, hail, drought, or other agency. How many uninjured or perfect leaves are there on the plant growing nearest the schoolhouse steps? ”

“ When the foliage is of different color and form and the branches bear plums, red, yellow or blue, flat or round, small or large, some ripe and others only half developed, the result is strikingly bizarre. When the fruit is ripe he walks along the rows, marking those which are undoubtedly the best, as far as can be judged by a cursory examination. Then a workingman removes all those which for one reason or another are considered valueless. ”

“ All fruits, however, should be allowed to become perfectly ripe, before they are removed from their stems or branches, excepting sloes, and one or two other astringents, that lose their virtues, if suffered to remain on the trees till they attain to maturity. ”

“ These last do not grow hanging, but assume their round shape as they lie on the ground. A thing that is very remarkable in them, in addition to their shape, colour, and smell, is the fact that, when ripe, although they do not hang from the stem, they separate from it at the stalk. ”

“ The disfavour with which "stone fruits," especially plums, are generally regarded owes its being to the fact that they are too often eaten when unripe. When ripe, they are as wholesome as any other fruit. ”

“ Those of the first generation destroy the blossoms; and those of the second destroy the fruit, as they always attack bearing branches. The drying up of the leaves and fruit on the tree may usually be traced to these insects. ”

“ But bend down and pluck it up, root and all, out of the wet, black earth. Carry it home with you, and, if you have a magnifying glass, examine one of its leaves.
The picture (Fig. 157) shows you a leaf much larger than it is in life. The red hairs look like pins stuck in a cushion, and the head of each pin glistens with the drop that looks like dew.
Fig. 157
But the ants and flies do not take these drops for dew. ”

“ The secretion of this murderous liquid to lure the only creature that will visit such an offensively malodorous plant, which, without it, would very likely be itself destroyed by the foliage-eating snails, is a gruesome contrast to that happy flitting of butterflies which completes the fertilization of most flowers in equally effective but more pleasing fashion. ”

“ Into the deep grooves of the lettering little seeds are carried by the wind, and, lodging there, the dampness soon causes them to germinate, and in place of the blackness of decay spring up the characters in living green. ”

“ In such emergency the stems and leaves of flowering plants are often made to serve, and even fruits and flowers afford convenient resting places. The object now to be attained is not the formation of fruit alone, but likewise its speedy desiccation and the prompt dispersal of the perfected spores. ”

“ All ripe products of the life of flowers consist essentially of the Seed and Husk,—these being, in certain cases, sustained, surrounded, or provided with means of motion, by other parts of the plant; or by developments of their own form which require in each case distinct names. ”

“ Where now are thrifty growths, beautiful leafage, and large crops of fair fruit, would be seen stinted, moss-grown limbs, with sparse or meagre foliage, crops of dwarfed specimens, that have finished their growing, in a knotty, wormy, inferior state. ”

“ These innumerable and ruinous pests do not consume the entire grain, but they nibble the soft sweet portion from the joint of each seed, neatly picking out the heart; thus the ground beneath is strewed with their remnants of destruction. ”

“ Without some excess or deficiency of absorption and elaboration in the growth of grain or plants--something essentially disturbing their normal and harmonious processes of development--no mycological forms would appear on their stems or roots, nor would they develop themselves on their fading leaves or congested and decaying fruit. ”