bout an inch and
a half in diameter, and is intensely acid. Yet they make fine
sweet-meats, and also cider of them. He concludes, that "if, on being
cultivated, it does not yield new and palatable varieties, it will at
least be celebrated for the beauty of its flowers, and for the
sweetness of its perfume."

[7] Pronounced mee-sho; a French botanist and traveller.

I never saw the Crab-Apple till May, 1861. I had heard of it through
Michaux, but more modern botanists, so far as I know, have not treated
it as of any peculiar importance. Thus it was a half-fabulous tree to
me. I contemplated a pilgrimage to the "Glades," a portion of
Pennsylvania, where it was said to grow to perfection. I thought of
sending to a nursery for it, but doubted if they had it, or would
distinguish it from European varieties. At last I had occasion to go to
Minnesota, and on entering Michigan I began to notice from the cars a
tree with handsome rose-colored flowers. At first I thought it some
variety of thorn; but it was not long before the truth flashed on me,
that this was my long-sought Crab-Apple. It was the prevailing
flowering shrub or tree to be seen from the cars at that season of the
year,--about the middle of May. But the cars never stopped before one,
and so I was launched on the bosom of the Mississippi without having
touched one, experiencing the fate of Tantalus. On arriving at St.
Anthony's Falls, I was sorry to be told that I was too far north for
the Crab-Apple. Nevertheless I succeeded in finding it about eight
miles west of the Falls; touched it and smelled it, and secured a
lingering corymb of flowers for my herbarium. This must have been near
its northern limit.

HOW THE WILD APPLE GROWS.

But though these are indigenous, like the Indians, I doubt whether they
are any hardier than those back-woodsmen among the apple-trees, which,
though descended from cultivated stocks, plant themselves in distant
fields and forests, where the soil is favorable to them. I know of no
trees which have more difficulties to contend with, and which more
sturdily resist their foes. These are the ones whose story we have to
tell. It oftentimes reads thus:--

Near the beginning of May, we notice little thickets of apple-trees
just springing up in the pastures where cattle have been,--as the rocky
ones of our Easter-brooks Country, or the top of Nobscot Hill in
Sudbury. One or two of these perhaps survive the drought and other
accide