Nevertheless, our wild apple is wild only like myself, perchance,
who belong not to the aboriginal race here, but have strayed into
the woods from the cultivated stock. Wilder still, as I have said,
there grows elsewhere in this country a native and aboriginal Crab-
Apple, "whose nature has not yet been modified by cultivation." It
is found from Western New York to Minnesota and southward. Michaux
[Footnote: Pronounced mee-sho; a French botanist and traveller.]
says that its ordinary height "is fifteen or eighteen feet, but it
is sometimes found twenty-five or thirty feet high," and that the
large ones "exactly resemble the common apple-tree." "The flowers
are white mingled with rose-color, and are collected in corymbs."
They are remarkable for their delicious odor. The fruit, according
to him, is about 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."

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