THE WILD ROSE SWEETING
Still another memory goes with that first Cattle Show in Maine--the Wild
Rose Sweeting.
Afterwards I came to know that delicious apple well; but it was at the
Fair that I first made its acquaintance. Willis Murch was peddling them,
and made the place resound, not unmusically, with cries of "Wild Rose
Sweetings! Straight from the Garden of Eden! The best apple that ever
grew! Only a few left!"--and he was actually asking (and getting) four
cents apiece for them.
In some astonishment I drew up to him to see what it could be in the way
of an apple to command such a price and be in such evident demand. They
were truly lovely apples to look at, but noticing that I was still
skeptical as to their exceeding merits, Willis kindly gave me one--by
way of removing all doubts. Truth to say, those doubts were at once
removed.
The Wild Rose Sweeting, indeed, is really worthy of a biography, its
history was so romantic, its fate so sad. Let me try to be its humble
biographer.
As a rule apple-trees that come up wild, bear fruit that is either sour
or else bitter-sweet. All such trees need to be budded, or grafted and
cultivated, to be of value to man. It is only once in a million times
that a really good apple comes up as natural fruit.
The value to the world of such a choice apple may be enormous. The
Baldwin, for example, which first appeared growing wild in a
Massachusetts town, could hardly be reckoned to-day as worth less than a
hundred millions of dollars. We can bud, graft, cultivate and do much
to improve existent apples; but it is only by chance that we propagate a
new one that is really good.
The Wild Rose Sweeting was named by Miss Alice Linderman, a young lady
from Philadelphia, who had come to our northern hill country several
years previously in the vain hope of recovery from advanced pulmonary
disease. She named it from the wild-rose tint on one cheek of the apple.
The tree was discovered by Willis, who kept the secret of it to himself
as long as he could, for his own behoof. He was sufficiently generous to
give some of the apples to Miss Linderman, but he demanded a cent apiece
from others. He even asked four cents apiece after the fame of the
apples spread abroad.
The year after he discovered the tree Willis carried a bushel to the
county fair, and began peddling them at a cent apiece. Nearly every one
who bought an apple came back for more. Willis raised the price to three
and four cents. Presently a gentleman who had bought two came back and
took the last ten in the basket at a dollar!
This fact shows better than any description could what a really luscious
apple it was. There was that in the flavor of it that impelled people to
get more.
The Wild Rose Sweeting more nearly resembled the Sweet Harvey than any
other apple to which I can liken it. The flavor was like that of the
Sweet Harvey thrice refined, perhaps rather more like the August or Pear
Sweeting; and it melted on the palate like a spoonful of ice-cream.
It will not seem strange to those who know something of the "apple-belt"
of New England that apple-trees, even good ones, should be discovered
growing wild in back pastures and secluded openings in the woods.
Oxford County, Maine, abounds in wild apple-trees. By looking about a
little, the farmer there can readily pick up enough young trees, growing
wild, to set an orchard. They spring up everywhere. For this is one of
the world's natural apple regions. North and northeast of the Old
Squire's farm rose wooded hills; and extending back among them was a
valley, down which ran a brook, abounding in trout-holes at the foot of
ledges and large rocks.
At one time the land here was cleared, but being stony and rough it had
been used for pasture, and was partly overgrown with bushes. There were
thousands of young wild apple-trees here, scrubby and thorny, where
cattle had browsed them.
The boys often went fishing in this brook, spring, summer and fall. Far
up the valley, at a point where the brook flowed over a ledge, there was
a well-known hole. Willis Murch was fishing here one afternoon in the
latter part of August, when he saw a red squirrel carrying an apple in
its mouth by the stem, and coming out from some thick young hemlocks
that grew along the west bank of the brook. He was sitting so still that
the squirrel ran close up to him; but when he suddenly thrust out his
hand, the animal dropped the apple and scudded away with a shrill
_chicker_.
The apple rolled close to Willis's feet, and he picked it up. Apples
were common enough, but this one looked so good that he rubbed it on his
sleeve and bit it. Then his eyes opened in surprise, for this was no
sour cider-apple, but far and away the best apple he had ever tasted.
"It must grow near here," he said to himself, looking curiously around.
"That squirrel didn't bring it far. The stem is fresh, too. He has just
gnawed it off the tree."
Thereupon Willis began searching. He crept into the hemlocks on hands
and knees. Presently he came upon several other gnawed apples; but even
with this clue, he was half an hour finding the tree. There were four
or five huge rocks back from the brook among the thick hemlocks. At last
he crawled in past two of these that stood close together, and came upon
the apple-tree, in a little sheltered amphitheater. It was at the foot
of another large rock, twelve or fifteen feet high. A tiny spring oozed
out at the foot of the rock; and here this apple-tree had grown up,
unwatched and undiscovered save by the squirrels and birds. The tree was
a thrifty one. The trunk had attained a diameter of six inches; and when
Willis found it, there were, he says, four or five bushels of those
delicious Sweetings, now just beginning to ripen. Willis first ate all
he desired, then took off his coat, made a bag of it, and shook down the
ripest of the apples to carry home to his family and the neighboring
boys and girls.
"Won't they smack their lips!" he said to himself. "Won't they be up
here for more!"
But on the way he took second thought, and craft entered his heart. "I
won't tell them where it is," he said to himself. "Let them hunt. They
never will find it." For the place was a mile and a half or two miles
from the nearest farm.
Willis as yet had not thought of selling the apples or making a profit
from his discovery; that idea came into his mind later, after he found
how fond every one was of them. But that night when asked where this
tree grew, Willis laughed and said darkly, "Oh, I know!"
Such secretiveness was deemed piggish, and was resented. Several
declared that they could and would find that tree and get every apple on
it. Willis laughed and said, "Let me know when you do."
That was the beginning of the long search for "Willis Murch's good
tree." First and last, hours, days and, altogether, weeks of time were
spent scouring the pastures, fields and clearings. Willis was watched
constantly, in the hope of tracking him.
Alfred Batchelder lay in wait for days together on a hill overlooking
the Murch farm, expecting to see Willis set out for the tree. At one
time Alfred and another boy, named Charles Cross, had thoughts of
waylaying Willis, and extorting the secret from him by threats or
torture!
Willis steered clear of them, however, and remained close-mouthed. He
had grown very crafty, and went to the tree by night only, or sometimes
early on Sunday mornings, before other people were astir.
During the August moon of the second season after discovering the tree,
he brought home a bushel of the apples on three different occasions by
night; and he now began canvassing among the farmers who had orchards,
to sell scions, to be delivered in May of the following spring. After
eating the apples, not a few signed for them at fifty cents a graft.
It required a fair share of courage on the part of a boy of fifteen to
go to the tree by night, for the distance from Willis's home was fully
two miles; and at that time bears and lynxes frequented the "great
pasture."
Willis afterward told the other boys that a bear came out in the path
directly ahead of him one night, as he was hurrying home with a bushel
of Wild Rose Sweetings on his shoulder. The creature sniffed, and Willis
shouted to frighten it. He was on the point of throwing down his apples,
to climb a tree in haste, when the bear shambled away.
Willis seems now to have had great designs of selling scions to
orchardists and nurserymen over the whole country. Only a tiny twig,
three inches long, is requisite for a scion for grafting into other
trees. The Wild Rose Sweeting tree would produce thousands of such
scions. Willis, who was a Yankee lad by ancestry, resolved to preserve
the secret of the tree at all hazards. He appears to have had dreams of
making a fortune from it.
Thus far no one had been able to find the tree, as much from nature's
own precaution in hiding it as from Willis's craft. By the middle of
September that autumn he had gathered most of the apples, when the same
chance which had first led his steps to the tree revealed it to the eyes
of his enemies.
For about that time Alfred Batchelder and Charles Cross's brother,
Newman, went fishing up the brook, and in due course arrived at the
trout-hole where Willis had sat when he saw the squirrel. They crept up
to the hole, baited and cast in together.
There were no bites immediately; but as they sat there they heard a red
squirrel _chirr_! up among the thick hemlocks, and presently caught the
sound of a low thud on the ground, soon followed by another and another.
"He's gnawing off apples," said Alfred. "There's an apple-tree among
those hemlocks."
Then the two cronies glanced at each other, and the same thought
occurred to both. "Who knows!" exclaimed Newman. "Who knows but what
that may be the tree?"
They stopped fishing and began searching. They could still hear the
squirrel in the apple-tree, and the sounds guided them to the little
dell among the rocks. There were a few apples remaining on the tree; and
they no sooner saw them than they knew that Willis Murch's famous tree
was found at last.
They were so greatly pleased that they hurrahed and whooped for joy.
Then they secured what apples there were left, ate all they wanted, and
filled their pockets with the rest. No more fishing for them that day.
They had found the famous tree, and now were intent on thinking how they
could most humiliate Willis.
Neither of them knew of his grand scheme to sell scions; but it had long
provoked their envy to see him peddling Wild Rose Sweetings at the Fair
for four cents apiece. They would find him now and thrust a
pink-cheeked apple under his nose!
But that would not be half satisfaction enough. They wanted to cut him
off from his tree forever, to put it out of his power ever to get
another apple from it. Nothing less would appease the grudge they bore
him.
And what those two malicious youths did was to take their jack-knives
and girdle that Wild Rose Sweeting tree close to the ground. They went
clear round the tree, cutting away the bark into the sap-wood; and not
content with girdling it once, they went round it three times in
different places.
That done, they went home in great glee, thrust the apples in Willis's
face, and bade him look to his good tree.
"We have found your tree, old Cuffy!" they cried to him. "You never will
get any more apples off that tree!"
Beyond doubt Willis was chagrined. He did not know that they had girdled
the tree, but he thought it not worth the while to go up there again
that fall, since there were no more apples. Yet even if Alfred and
Newman had found it, and even if they got the apples next season, he
supposed that he would still be able to cut scions from the tree. Late
in March, directly after the sap started, he went up there with knife
and saw to secure them.
Not till then did he discover that the tree had been cruelly girdled,
and that the spring sap had not flowed to the limbs. He cut a bundle of
scions, some of which were afterward set as grafts; but none of them
lived. The tree was killed. It never bore again. Nor can I learn that
sprouts ever came up about the root. It was quite dead when I first
visited the place.
Thus perished, untimely, the Wild Rose Sweeting. Ignorance and small
malice robbed the world of an apple that might have given delight and
benefit to millions of people for centuries to come.
I have sometimes thought that an inscription of the nature of an epitaph
should be cut on the great rock at the foot of which the tree stood.