memory than from any recent experience, such ravages have been made!

Some soils, like a rocky tract called the Easterbrooks Country in my
neighborhood, are so suited to the apple, that it will grow faster
in them without any care, or if only the ground is broken up once a
year, than it will in many places with any amount of care. The
owners of this tract allow that the soil is excellent for fruit, but
they say that it is so rocky that they have not patience to plough
it, and that, together with the distance, is the reason why it is
not cultivated. There are, or were recently, extensive orchards
there standing without order. Nay, they spring up wild and bear well
there in the midst of pines, birches, maples, and oaks. I am often
surprised to see rising amid these trees the rounded tops of apple-
trees glowing with red or yellow fruit, in harmony with the autumnal
tints of the forest.

Going up the side of a cliff about the first of November, I saw a
vigorous young apple-tree, which, planted by birds or cows, had shot
up amid the rocks and open woods there, and had now much fruit on
it, uninjured by the frosts, when all cultivated apples were
gathered. It was a rank wild growth, with many green leaves on it
still, and made an impression of thorniness. The fruit was hard and
green, but looked as if it would be palatable in the winter. Some
was dangling on the twigs, but more half-buried in the wet leaves
under the tree, or rolled far down the hill amid the rocks. The
owner knows nothing of it. The day was not observed when it first
blossomed, nor when it first bore fruit, unless by the chickadee.
There was no dancing on the green beneath it in its honor, and now
there is no hand to pluck its fruit,--which is only gnawed by
squirrels, as I perceive. It has done double duty,--not only borne