f our fruit.) Justice Shallow's orchard, with its choice
pippins and leather-coats, was doubtless much superior. Nevertheless, it
pleases me to think of the good minister, walking in the shadows of
these old, fantastically-shaped apple-trees, here plucking some of the
fruit to taste, there pruning away a too luxuriant branch, and all the
while computing how many barrels may be filled, and how large a sum will
be added to his stipend by their sale. And the same trees offer their
fruit to me as freely as they did to him,--their old branches, like
withered hands and arms, holding out apples of the same flavor as they
held out to Dr. Ripley in his lifetime. Thus the trees, as living
existences, form a peculiar link between the dead and us. My fancy has
always found something very interesting in an orchard. Apple-trees, and
all fruit-trees, have a domestic character which brings them into
relationship with man. They have lost, in a great measure, the wild
nature of the forest-tree, and have grown humanized by receiving the
care of man, and by contributing to his wants. They have become a part
of the family; and their individual characters are as well understood
and appreciated as those of the human members. One tree is harsh and
crabbed, another mild; one is churlish and illiberal, another exhausts
itself with its free-hearted bounties. Even the shapes of apple-trees
have great individuality, into such strange postures do they put
themselves, and thrust their contorted branches so grotesquely in all
directions. And when they have stood around a house for many years, and
held converse with successive dynasties of occupants, and gladdened
their hearts so often in the fruitful autumn, then it would seem almost
sacrilege to cut them down.

Besides the apple-trees, there are various other kinds of fruit in close
vicinity to the house. When we first arrived, there were several trees
of ripe cherries, but so sour that we allowed them to wither upon the
branches. Two long rows of currant-bushes supplied us abundantly for
nearly four weeks. There are a good many peach-trees, but all of an old
date,--their branches rotten, gummy, and mossy,--and their fruit, I
fear, will be of very inferior quality. They produce most abundantly,
however,--the peaches being almost as numerous as the leaves; and even
the sprouts and suckers from the roots of the old trees have fruit upon
them. Then there are pear-trees of various kinds, and one or two
q