inclined to fall before their time, a stone placed in a split root
will retain them." Some such notion, still surviving, may account
for some of the stones which we see placed to be overgrown in the
forks of trees. They have a saying in Suffolk, England,--

"At Michaelmas time, or a little before,
Half an apple goes to the core."

Early apples begin to be ripe about the first of August; but I think
that none of them are so good to eat as some to smell. One is worth
more to scent your handkerchief with than any perfume which they
sell in the shops. The fragrance of some fruits is not to be
forgotten, along with that of flowers. Some gnarly apple which I
pick up in the road reminds me by its fragrance of all the wealth of
Pomona, [Footnote: The Roman goddess of fruit and fruit-trees.]--
carrying me forward to those days when they will be collected in
golden and ruddy heaps in the orchards and about the cider-mills.

A week or two later, as you are going by orchards or gardens,
especially in the evenings, you pass through a little region
possessed by the fragrance of ripe apples, and thus enjoy them
without price, and without robbing anybody.

There is thus about all natural products a certain volatile and
ethereal quality which represents their highest value, and which
cannot be vulgarized, or bought and sold. No mortal has ever enjoyed
the perfect flavor of any fruit, and only the godlike among men
begin to taste its ambrosial qualities. For nectar and ambrosia are
only those fine flavors of every earthly fruit which our coarse
palates fail to perceive,--just as we occupy the heaven of the gods