t in hotter and drier
regions the trunk is kept short to insure against sun-scald; and with
the better tillage implements of the present day it may not be
necessary to train the heads so high.

In old hill pastures, in many parts of the North, one sees curious
umbrella forms and other shapes of apple-trees, due to browsing by
cattle. A little tree gets a start in the pasture. When cattle are
turned in, they browse the tender terminal growth. The plant spreads
at the base, in a horizontal direction. With the repeated browsing on
top, the tree becomes a dense conical mound. Eventually, the leader
may get a strong headway, and grows beyond the reach of the browsers.
As it rises out of grasp, it sends off its side shoots, forming a
head. The cattle browse the under side of this head, as far as they
are able to reach, causing the tree to assume a grotesque hour-glass
shape, flat on the under part of the head, with a cone of green
herbage at the ground. Sometimes pastures are full of little hummocks
of trees that have not yet been able to overtop the grazers.

The winter apple-tree in the free is a reassuring object. It has none
of the sleekness of many horticultural forms, nor the fragility of
peaches, sour cherries and plums. It stands boldly against the sky,
with its elbows at all angles and its scaly bark holding the snow.
Against evergreens it shows its ruggedness specially well. It
presents forms to attract the artist. Even when gnarly and broken, it
does not convey an impression of decrepitude and decay but rather of a
hardy old character bearing his burdens. In every winter landscape I
look instinctively for the apple-tree.

We are so accustomed to the apple-tree as a part of an orchard, where
it is trimmed into shape and its bolder irregularities controlled,
that we do not think it has beauty when left to itself to grow as it
will. An apple-tree that takes its own course, as does a pine-tree or
an oak, is looked on as unkempt and unprofitable and as a sorry object
in the landscape, advertizing the neglect of the owner. Yet if the
apple-tree had never borne good fruit, we should plant it for its
bloom and its picturesqueness as we plant a hawthorn or a locust-tree.

In winter and in summer, and in the months between, my apple-tree is a
great fact. It is a character in the population of my scenery,
standing for certain human emotions. The tree is a living thing, not
merely a something that bears apples.

II