favorite tree some time or other; and when she found that her earthly existence was drawing towards its close, she pressed forward the execution of this project with all the eagerness of a dying wish. But it was too late. Before the much-desired fountain could be got ready to play, the spirit that had summoned it into existence had departed.

Excessively fond of flowers, she requested, in the brief and touching will she drew up shortly before her death, that "if she died in the spring, a few flowers might be laid upon her grave," and those who were with her when she died, remember that, with almost her latest breath, she spoke of flowers.

Leaving out of view certain obscure particulars of her private history, of which it would be difficult for those who did not know her personally to arrive at a just appreciation, and which, moreover, do not fall within the legitimate scope of the public eye, such was the life, and such the death, of the distinguished woman who was for so many years the centre of the most brilliant literary circle of the French capital.

In obedience to her often-expressed desire, the obsequies of Madame de Girardin were performed with the utmost simplicity; but so general was the regret excited by her death, and so great was the concourse assembled at her funeral, that it may be said, almost without exaggeration, that all Paris followed her mortal remains to the grave. A. B. Paris.

XIII.-FRUITS IN THEIR SEASON.

ALL ABOUT APPLES.

If ancient and honorable be necessarily connected terms, then truly to the apple among all fruits the place of honor must surely be assigned; for does not the very sound of the name seem an echo of Eden and the first age? True is it that in these days of enlightenment, the sapient "school-boy," unless he be of the smallest of his kind, has probably read enough of Scriptural illustration or Syrian travel, or seen enough in the shop-windows of enterprising fruiterers, not to exactly identify the pippin in his pocket with that fatal first experiment in practical pomology which once took place in Paradise. Yet still the name of our favorite fruit has been so long associated with "the tree in the midst of the garden," and its form has for so many ages been carved and painted in illustration thereof, that our own ordinary every-day apple still holds its place against all rivals as the popular symbol of temptation; and the allegory would have somewhat lost its force if Holman Hunt, for instance, had introduced a citron, or shaddock, or pommeloe in "The Light of the World," instead of the common orchard produce he has pictured there. And however its right may be disputed to personate the subjects of

Eastern or classical story, yet when we come to the cold Norse regions, far from "the land where the citron blows," we can have no doubts as to the real pippinism of those apples of immortality kept by the fair Iduna, and by regaling on which the gods of the Edda were wont to renew their youth, until the wicked Loke stole and hid away both the maiden and her fruit, leaving the bereaved divinities to pine away, losing their vigor both of mind and body, and neglecting the affairs of heaven and earth, until mortals, deprived of celestial supervision, fell into all manner of evil, and it almost happened that for want of an apple the world was lost. Well was it that at last, summoning all that remained of their expiring energies, they succeeded in forcing the robber to restore those precious pomes on which the welfare of both realms depended!

The tree connected with so many legends of remote antiquity belongs to the genus Pomeæ of the great natural order Rosacea, of which the rose is the type or head of the family, and the chief characteristic of which is that the ovary, or part which contains the future seed, the hip of the rose or apple of the apple-tree, is situate below the flower, seeming like an enlargement of the stalk where it meets the calyx. In most flowers of this order the numerous stamens remain for a time after the petals have fallen, and the traces of the calyx are still to be seen upon the summit of the fruit even when it has reached maturity. The family likeness to the plant from which the order is named is most apparent in the loveliest blossom of the apple tribe, the Chinese Crab, which may rival in beauty the very Queen of Flowers, when, in early spring, it puts forth its deep-red buds and large semi-double flowers, of tenderest texture and flushed with a tint of pure though pale carmine, the charm of its rosy clusters all enhanced by their setting of fresh vernal green. And even the ordinary apple blossom is indeed of no mean beauty. The pear may boast of nobler form and loftier growth as a tree, but its white and scentless bloom cannot compare with that which glorifies the crooked stem and irregularly jutting branches of its orchard neighbor with such delicate fragrance and tender hue, "less than that of roses and more than that of violets," as Dante describes it, and which won from the keenest living observer of nature's varying beauties the testimony, that "of all the lovely things which grace the spring time in this our fair temperate zone, I am not sure but this blossoming of the apple-tree is the fairest." It was said, too, that a remark of the same high authority to the effect that this beautiful appearance had never yet been done justice to upon canvas, had some effect in planting so many orchards last year upon the walls of the Royal Academy.

Nearly related as is the blossom to the loveliest of flowers, that which succeeds it is undoubtedly the most useful of fruits. This pome, as it is called by botanists, consists of a succulent fleshy pulp, enclosed in a thin outer skin, and surrounding the cells, in which, protected by inner walls of cartilage, the seeds of future trees lies

ensconced. It is well that they are thus entrenched, for "Somehow or other," writes an author in the Entomological Magazine, "the pips of an apple are connected with its growth, as the heart of an animal with its life: injure the heart, an animal dies; injure the pips, an apple falls;" and thus, whenever any of its insect foes do succeed in piercing through all these strongholds and storming the kernels in their inmost citadel, the poor fruit, a living thing no longer, drops down at once to seek a grave in the earth. An unim portant event truly!—and yet, once at least in the world's history, the fall of an apple proved of greater import than the fall of a kingdom; when, in the quiet garden at Woolsthorpe, a busily devouring grub penetrated to the centre of the codlin he was consuming, snapped its connexion with the parent branch, and brought it to the feet of the sage, whose resulting speculations on "why an apple falls," resolved the question of how worlds are sustained. But this was an accident in apple life; and it was doubtless for humbler purposes and more direct uses than to furnish philosophers with food for reflection, that the Pomeæ are scattered over the world. Growing spontaneously throughout Europe, and in most other temperate climes, the tree asks for little depth of earth, for having no tap root, a single foot of soil will suffice it, and twice this quantity gives it ample scope; but it is necessary that this little should be of a certain quality, so that its appearance may always be looked on as a mark of at least a tolerably good soil. Like most fruit-trees, it prefers calcareous earth, and geologists have noticed that the orchard counties of England follow the track of the red sandstone. shade is so kindly, that, in the Surrey nurseries, tender evergreens which would be injured by spring frosts, are always planted under its protecting branches. In the wild state, it is seldom more than twenty feet high, besides being very crooked and small-leaved; but cultivation not only improves the fruit, changing the crab into the apple, in all its numerous varieties, but causes the leaves to become larger, thicker, and more downy, while the tree itself assumes a more regular form, and attains a loftier height. In Scotland, twenty-five feet is considered high; near London, thirty feet is a fair standard; in Herefordshire forty feet, and in North America, where it attains its greatest perfection, a famous pearmain in Roumey, in Virginia, is described as being forty-five feet high, and the trunk upwards of three feet in diameter, while the produce in one year amounted to no less than 200 bushels, whereas the greatest amount on record in England, as having been gathered from one tree, is but 100 pecks. This American giant was a seedling, and though forty years old was still continuing to increase in magnitude. In the same country individual fruits likewise sometimes attain enormous size; and according to Downing, the "Beauty of Kent" is to be found there "frequently measuring sixteen or eighteen inches in circumference."

Its

In Siberia, the apple reaches its opposite limit of smallness, and the tiny cherry-like crab, named after its native land, is found

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widely distributed. Several varieties are peculiar to Russia, the most noteworthy being the White Astracan, which is distinguished by the singular circumstance of not only becoming almost transparent when ripe, but of being covered with a copious and delicate bloom, exactly similar to that waxy secretion which clouds the plum or grape with its beautiful azure mist. The tree is likewise found in some parts of India, and an attempt was made some years ago to introduce it into the northern part of that continent, when a single tree, in consequence of being the only one which survived, cost upwards of seventy pounds before it was planted in the nursery at Mossuree.

Leaving out of question the fruits figuring in ancient history or fable, for which the modern equivalents cannot be exactly ascertained, it is held to be proved that the common apple was known to very remote ages, and is mentioned by Theophrastus and Herodotus. Among the Thebans it was offered to Hercules, a custom derived from the circumstance of a river having once so overflowed its ordinary limits as to prevent a sheep being carried across it for a sacrifice to the labor-loving God, when some youths, on the strength of the Greek word melon signifying both a sheep and an apple, stuck four wooden pegs into the fruit to represent legs, and brought the vegetable quadruped thus extemporised as a substitute for the usual offering, after which the apple was always looked on as specially devoted to Hercules. It is, of course, descanted on by Pliny: "Of apples," says he, "that is to say, of fruits that have tender skins to be pared off, there be many sorts," and many indeed we might expect, if so liberal a definition of the name were accepted. Concerning the crab, he continues, "This gift they have for their harsh sourness, that they have many a foul word and shrewd curse given them;" affording us no very dignified view of Roman equanimity, if the flavor of a fruit could so violently disturb it.-After giving a list of the fruits known in his day, the varieties of apples amounting to about twenty, he adds, "So as in this point verily the world is growne alreadie to the highest pitch, insomuch as there is not a fruit but men have made trial and many experiments, for even in Virgil's days the devise of graffing strange fruits was very rife; considering that he speaks of the arbute-tree graffed on nut-trees, the plane upon apple-trees, and the elm upon cherry-stocks. In such sort as I see not how men can devise to proceed farther. And certes for this long time there hath not been a new kind of apple or of other fruit heard of." Pomology, nevertheless, has progressed somewhat since those Plinian days of "highest pitch," seeing that some thirty years ago no less than fourteen hundred varieties of apples were enumerated in the catalogue of the Horticultural Society.

As the tree grows wild throughout almost the whole of Britain, and as the name apple (in Celtic, Abhal) is considered by the best authorities to be derived from the pure Celtic Ball signifying a round body, it is more probable that it is indigenous to this country than

that it was introduced, as some have thought, by the Romans. It was adopted as the badge of one of the highland clans, and a branch of apple was the mark of distinction conferred on the Welsh bards who most excelled in minstrelsy. It must have been early set apart for special culture, since in a charter of King John, granting property to a priory, mention is made of "twelve acres of land and an orchard," and the same word has even been found in yet older documents. Varieties were probably introduced from Normandy and other parts of the continent, though little information about them is to be gathered from early writers on fruit cultivation, one in particular giving an account of apples almost as long and as interesting as the famous chapter on the snakes of Ireland, since he simply remarks in reference to the subject, "I nede not to describe thys tree, because it is knowne well enough in all countries." The oldest existing variety on record in England is that which Phillips apostrophizes as

"the fair Pearmaine,

Tempered like comeliest nymph with white and red"—

it being noticed as an article of cultivation in Norfolk as early as the year 1200, a tenure in that county having been held by the yearly payments of "two-hundred pearmaines, and four hogsheads of pearmaine cyder." The derivation of the name, according to Hogg, is similar to that of Charlemagne, sometimes written Charlemaine, and which meaning Carolus Magnus, the former may be taken as meaning Pyrus Magnus, or the great pear-apple, the shape bearing some resemblance to that of a pear. In the time of Charles I. orcharding," as it was called, became general throughout this country, and the seventeenth century may be looked on as the golden age of apples. Evelyn published an appendix to his "Sylva" under the title of "Pomona," which did much to bring the subject under public attention, and, by the exertions of the first Lord Scudamore, Herefordshire in particular became, as it has been expressed, "one entire orchard." This gentleman, the son of Sir James Scudamore, from whom Spenser is said to have drawn the character of Sir Scudamore in the Faerie Queen, was in the company of the Duke of Buckingham when he was assassinated by Felton at Portsmouth, and received such a shock from witnessing this catastrophe that he retired into private life, and devoted all his energies to the culture of fruit. That kind to which he gave most attention was a variety which is believed to have originated during this century, and which was at first called the Scudamore Crab, but afterwards known as the Redstreak. It was Evelyn's favorite also, and indeed a modern author -leaving out of view probably the fatal gifts of Paris, and all that grew therefrom-remarks concerning it, that "perhaps there is no apple which at any period created such a sensation," so much having been said and written about it during the seventeenth century. Phillips, of "Splendid Shilling" celebrity, who wrote an entire poem in Virgilian measure upon "cyder," which had also the