COMFORT ME WITH APPLES
"What can your eye desire to see, your eares to heare, your mouth
to taste, or your nose to smell, that is not to be had in an
Orchard? with Abundance and Variety? What shall I say? 1000 of
Delights are in an Orchard; and sooner shall I be weary than I can
reckon the least part of that pleasure which one, that hath and
loves an Orchard, may find therein."
--_A New Orchard_, WILLIAM LAWSON, 1618.
In every old-time garden, save the revered front yard, the borders
stretched into the domain of the Currant and Gooseberry bushes, and into
the orchard. Often a row of Crabapple trees pressed up into the garden's
precincts and shaded the Sweet Peas. Orchard and garden could scarcely
be separated, so closely did they grow up together. Every old garden
book had long chapters on orchards, written _con amore_, with a zest
sometimes lacking on other pages. How they loved in the days of Queen
Elizabeth and of Queen Anne to sit in an orchard, planted, as Sir Philip
Sidney said, "cunningly with trees of taste-pleasing fruits." How
charming were their orchard seats, "fachoned for meditacon!" Sometimes
these orchard seats were banks of the strongly scented Camomile, a
favorite plant of Lord Bacon's day. Wordsworth wrote in jingling
rhyme:--
"Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,
In this sequester'd nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard seat;
And flowers and birds once more to greet,
My last year's friends together."
The incomparable beauty of the Apple tree in full bloom has ever been
sung by the poets, but even their words cannot fitly nor fully tell the
delight to the senses of the close view of those exquisite pink and
white domes, with their lovely opalescent tints, their ethereal
fragrance; their beauty infinitely surpasses that of the vaunted Cherry
plantations of Japan. In the hand the flowers show a distinct ruddiness,
a promise of future red cheeks; but a long vista of trees in bloom
displays no tint of pink, the flowers seem purest white. Looking last
May across the orchard at Hillside, adown the valley of the Hudson with
its succession of blossoming orchards, we could paraphrase the words of
Longfellow's _Golden Legend_:--
"The valley stretching below
Is white with blossoming Apple trees, as if touched with lightest
snow."
In the darkest night flowering Apple trees shine with clear radiance,
and an orchard of eight hundred acres, such as may be seen in Niagara
County, New York, shows a white expanse like a lake of quicksilver.
This county, and its neighbor, Orleans County, form an Apple
paradise--with their orchards of fifty and even a hundred thousand
trees.
[Illustration: Apple Trees at White Hall, the Home of Bishop Berkeley.]
The largest Apple tree in New England is in Cheshire, Connecticut. Its
trunk measures, one foot above all root enlargements, thirteen feet
eight inches in circumference.
Its age is traced back a hundred and fifty years. At White Hall, the
old home of Bishop Berkeley in the island of Rhode Island, still stand
the Apple trees of his day. A picture of them is shown on page 194.
The sedate and comfortable motherliness of old Apple trees is felt by
all Apple lovers. John Burroughs speaks of "maternal old Apple trees,
regular old grandmothers, who have seen trouble." James Lane Allen, amid
his apostrophes to the Hemp plant, has given us some beautiful glimpses
of Apple trees and his love for them. He tells of "provident old tree
mothers on the orchard slope, whose red-cheeked children are autumn
Apples." It is this motherliness, this domesticity, this homeliness that
makes the Apple tree so cherished, so beloved. No scene of life in the
country ever seems to me homelike if it lacks an Apple orchard--this
doubtless, because in my birthplace in New England they form a part of
every farm scene, of every country home. Apple trees soften and humanize
the wildest country scene. Even in a remote pasture, or on a mountain
side, they convey a sentiment of home; and after being lost in the mazes
of close-grown wood-roads Apple trees are inexpressibly welcome as
giving promise of a sheltering roof-tree. Thoreau wrote of wild Apples,
but to me no Apples ever look wild. They may be the veriest Crabs,
growing in wild spots, unbidden, and savage and bitter in their tang,
but even these seedling Pippins are domestic in aspect.
On the southern shores of Long Island, where meadow, pasture, and farm
are in soil and crops like New England, the frequent absence of Apple
orchards makes these farm scenes unsatisfying, not homelike. No other
fruit trees can take their place. An Orange tree, with its rich glossy
foliage, its perfumed ivory flowers and buds, and abundant golden fruit,
is an exquisite creation of nature; but an Orange grove has no ideality.
All fruit trees have a beautiful inflorescence--few have sentiment. The
tint of a blossoming Peach tree is perfect; but I care not for a Peach
orchard. Plantations of healthy Cherry trees are lovely in flower and
fruit time, whether in Japan or Massachusetts, and a Cherry tree is full
of happy child memories; but their tree forms in America are often
disfigured with that ugly fungous blight which is all the more
disagreeable to us since we hear now of its close kinship to disease
germs in the animal world.
I cannot see how they avoid having Apple trees on these Long Island
farms, for the Apple is fully determined to stand beside every home and
in every garden in the land. It does not have to be invited; it will
plant and maintain itself. Nearly all fruits and vegetables which we
prize, depend on our planting and care, but the Apple is as independent
as the New England farmer. In truth Apple trees would grow on these
farms if they were loved or even tolerated, for I find them forced into
Long Island hedge-rows as relentlessly as are forest trees.
The Indians called the Plantain the "white man's foot," for it sprung up
wherever he trod; the Apple tree might be called the white man's shadow.
It is the Vine and Fig tree of the temperate zone, and might be chosen
as the totem of the white settlers. Our love for the Apple is natural,
for it was the characteristic fruit of Britain; the clergy were its
chief cultivators; they grew Apples in their monastery gardens, prayed
for them in special religious ceremonies, sheltered the fruit by laws,
and even named the Apple when pronouncing the blessings of God upon
their princes and rulers.
[Illustration:
"The valley stretching below
Is white with blossoming Apple trees, as if touched with lightest
snow."]
Thoreau described an era of luxury as one in which men cultivate the
Apple and the amenities of the garden. He thought it indicated relaxed
nerves to read gardening books, and he regarded gardening as a civil and
social function, not a love of nature. He tells of his own love for
freedom and savagery--and he found what he so deemed at Walden Pond. I
am told his haunts are little changed since the years when he lived
there; and I had expected to find Walden Pond a scene of much wild
beauty, but it was the mildest of wild woods; it seemed to me as
thoroughly civilized and social as an Apple orchard.
[Illustration: Old Hand-power Cider Mill.]
Thoreau christened the Apple trees of his acquaintance with appropriate
names in the _lingua vernacula_: the Truant's Apple, the Saunterer's
Apple, December Eating, Wine of New England, the Apple of the Dell in
the Wood, the Apple of the Hollow in the Pasture, the Railroad Apple,
the Cellar-hole Apple, the Frozen-thawed, and many more; these he loved
for their fruit; to them let me add the Playhouse Apple trees, loved
solely for their ingeniously twisted branches, an Apple tree of the
garden, often overhanging the flower borders. I recall their glorious
whiteness in the spring, but I cannot remember that they bore any fruit
save a group of serious little girls. I know there were no Apples on the
Playhouse Apple trees in my garden, nor on the one in Nelly Gilbert's or
Ella Partridge's garden. There is no play place for girls like an old
Apple tree. The main limbs leave the trunk at exactly the right height
for children to reach, and every branch and twig seems to grow and turn
only to form delightful perches for children to climb among and cling
to. Some Apple trees in our town had a copy of an Elizabethan garden
furnishing; their branches enclosed tree platforms about twelve feet
from the ground, reached by a narrow ladder or flight of steps. These
were built by generous parents for their children's playhouses, but
their approach of ladder was too unhazardous, their railings too
safety-assuring, to prove anything but conventional and uninteresting.
The natural Apple tree offered infinite variety, and a slight sense of
daring to the climber. Its possibility of accident was fulfilled; untold
number of broken arms and ribs--juvenile--were resultant from falls from
Apple trees.
[Illustration: Pressing out Cider in Old Hand Mill.]
One of Thoreau's Apples was the Green Apple (_Malus viridis_, or
_Cholera morbifera puerelis delectissima_). I know not for how many
centuries boys (and girls too) have eaten and suffered from green
apples. A description was written in 1684 which might have happened any
summer since; I quote it with reminiscent delight, for I have the same
love for the spirited relation that I had in my early youth when I
never, for a moment, in spite of the significant names, deemed the
entire book anything but a real story; the notion that _Pilgrim's
Progress_ was an allegory never entered my mind.
"Now there was on the other side of the wall a _Garden_. And some
of the Fruit-Trees that grew in the Garden shot their Branches over
the Wall, and being mellow, they that found them did gather them up
and oft eat of them to their hurt. So _Christiana's_ Boys, _as Boys
are apt to do_, being _pleas'd_ with the Trees did _Plash_ them and
began to eat. Their Mother did also chide them for so doing, but
still the Boys went on. Now _Matthew_ the Eldest Son of
_Christiana_ fell sick.... There dwelt not far from thence one Mr.
_Skill_ an Ancient and well approved Physician. So Christiana
desired it and they sent for him and he came. And when he was
entered the Room and a little observed the Boy he concluded that he
was sick of the Gripes. Then he said to his Mother, _What Diet has
Matthew of late fed upon_? _Diet_, said Christiana, _nothing but
which is wholesome_. The Physician answered, _This Boy has been
tampering with something that lies in his Maw undigested_.... Then
said Samuel, _Mother, Mother, what was that which my brother did
gather up and eat. You know there was an Orchard and my Brother did
plash and eat. True, my child_, said Christiana, _naughty boy as he
was. I did chide him and yet he would eat thereof._"
The realistic treatment of Mr. Skill and Matthew's recovery thereby need
not be quoted.
An historic Apple much esteemed in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and
often planted at the edge of the flower garden, is called the Sapson, or
Early Sapson, Sapson Sweet, Sapsyvine, and in Pennsylvania, Wine-sap.
The name is a corruption of the old English Apple name, Sops-o'-wine. It
is a charming little red-cheeked Apple of early autumn, slightly larger
than a healthy Crab-apple. The clear red of its skin perfuses in
coral-colored veins and beautiful shadings to its very core. It has a
condensed, spicy, aromatic flavor, not sharp like a Crab-apple, but it
makes a better jelly even than the Crab-apple--jelly of a ruby color
with an almost wine-like flavor, a true Sops-of-wine. This fruit is
deemed so choice that I have known the sale of a farm to halt for some
weeks until it could be proved that certain Apple trees in the orchard
bore the esteemed Sapsyvines.
Under New England and New York farm-houses was a cellar filled with bins
for vegetables and apples. As the winter passed on there rose from these
cellars a curious, earthy, appley smell, which always seemed most
powerful in the best parlor, the room least used. How Schiller, who
loved the scent of rotten apples, would have rejoiced! The cellar also
contained many barrels of cider; for the beauty of the Apple trees, and
the use of their fruit as food, were not the only factors which
influenced the planting of the many Apple orchards of the new world;
they afforded a universal drink--cider. I have written at length, in my
books, _Home Life in Colonial Days_ and _Stage-Coach and Tavern Days_,
the history of the vogue and manufacture of cider in the new world. The
cherished Apple orchards of Endicott, Blackstone, Wolcott, and Winthrop
were so speedily multiplied that by 1670 cider was plentiful and cheap
everywhere. By the opening of the eighteenth century it had wholly
crowded out beer and metheglin; and was the drink of old and young on
all occasions.
[Illustration: Old Horse-lever Cider Mill.]
At first, cider was made by pounding the Apples by hand in wooden
mortars; then simple mills were formed of a hollowed log and a spring
board. Rude hand presses, such as are shown on pages 198 and 200, were
known in 1660, and lingered to our own day. Kalm, the Swedish
naturalist, saw ancient horse presses (like the one depicted on this
page) in use in the Hudson River Valley in 1749. In autumn the whole
country-side was scented with the sour, fruity smell from these cider
mills; and the gift of a draught of sweet cider to any passer-by was as
ample and free as of water from the brookside. The cider when barrelled
and stored for winter was equally free to all comers, as well it might
be, when many families stored a hundred barrels for winter use.
[Illustration: "Straining off" the Cider.]
The Washingtonian or Temperance reform which swept over this country
like a purifying wind in the first quarter of the nineteenth century,
found many temporizers who tried to exclude cider from the list of
intoxicating drinks which converts pledged themselves to abandon. Some
farmers who adopted this much-needed movement against the
all-prevailing vice of drunkenness received it with fanatic zeal. It
makes the heart of the Apple lover ache to read that in this spirit they
cut down whole orchards of flourishing Apple trees, since they could
conceive no adequate use for their apples save for cider. That any
should have tried to exclude cider from the list of intoxicating
beverages seems barefaced indeed to those who have tasted that most
potent of all spirits--frozen cider. I once drank a small modicum of
Jericho cider, as smooth as Benedictine and more persuasive, which made
a raw day in April seem like sunny midsummer. I afterward learned from
the ingenuous Long Island farmer whose hospitality gave me this liqueur
that it had been frozen seven times. Each time he had thrust a red-hot
poker into the bung-hole of the barrel, melted all the watery ice and
poured it out; therefore the very essence of the cider was all that
remained.
It is interesting to note the folk customs of Old England which have
lingered here, such as domestic love divinations. The poet Gay wrote:--
"I pare this Pippin round and round again,
My shepherd's name to flourish on the plain.
I fling th' unbroken paring o'er my head,
Upon the grass a perfect L. is read."
I have seen New England schoolgirls, scores of times, thus toss an
"unbroken paring." An ancient trial of my youth was done with Apple
seeds; these were named for various swains, then slightly wetted and
stuck on the cheek or forehead, while we chanted:--
"Pippin! Pippin! Paradise!
Tell me where my true love lies!"
The seed that remained longest in place indicated the favored and
favoring lover.
With the neglect in this country of Saints' Days and the Puritanical
frowning down of all folk customs connected with them, we lost the
delightful wassailing of the Apple trees. This, like many another
religious observance, was a relic of heathen sacrifice, in this case to
Pomona. It was celebrated with slight variations in various parts of
England; and was called an Apple howling, a wassailing, a youling, and
other terms. The farmer and his workmen carried to the orchard great
jugs of cider or milk pans filled with cider and roasted apples.
Encircling in turn the best bearing trees, they drank from
"clayen-cups," and poured part of the contents on the ground under the
trees. And while they wassailed the trees they sang:--
"Here's to thee, old Apple tree!
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear Apples enow!
Hats full! caps full,
Bushel--Bushel--sacks full,
And my pockets full too."
Another Devonshire rhyme ran:--
"Health to thee, good Apple tree!
Well to bear pocket-fulls, hat-fulls,
Peck-fulls, bushel bag-fulls."
The wassailing of the trees gave place in America to a jovial autumnal
gathering known as an Apple cut, an Apple paring, or an Apple bee. The
cheerful kitchen of the farm-house was set out with its entire array of
empty pans, pails, tubs, and baskets. Heaped-up barrels of apples stood
in the centre of the room. The many skilful hands of willing neighbors
emptied the barrels, and with sharp knives or an occasional Apple parer,
filled the empty vessels with cleanly pared and quartered apples.
When the work was finished, divinations with Apple parings and Apple
seeds were tried, simple country games were played; occasionally there
was a fiddler and a dance. An autumnal supper was served from the three
zones of the farm-house: nuts from the attic, Apples from the pantry,
and cider from the cellar. The apple-quarters intended for drying were
strung on homespun linen thread and hung out of doors on clear drying
days. A humble hillside home in New Hampshire thus quaintly festooned is
shown in the illustration opposite page 208--a characteristic New
Hampshire landscape. When thoroughly dried in sun and wind, these sliced
apples were stored for the winter by being hung from rafter to rafter of
various living rooms, and remained thus for months (gathering vast
accumulations of dust and germs for our blissfully ignorant and
unsqueamish grandparents) until the early days of spring, when Apple
sauce, Apple butter, and the stores of Apple bin and Apple pit were
exhausted, and they then afforded, after proper baths and soakings, the
wherewithal for that domestic comestible--dried Apple pie. The Swedish
parson, Dr. Acrelius, writing home to Sweden in 1758 an account of the
settlement of Delaware, said:--
"Apple pie is used throughout the whole year, and when fresh Apples
are no longer to be had, dried ones are used. It is the evening
meal of children. House pie, in country places, is made of Apples
neither peeled nor freed from their cores, and its crust is not
broken if a wagon wheel goes over it."
I always had an undue estimation of Apple pie in my childhood, from an
accidental cause: we were requested by the conscientious teacher in our
Sunday-school to "take out" each week without fail from the "Select
Library" of the school a "Sabbath-school Library Book." The colorless,
albeit pious, contents of the books classed under that title are well
known to those of my generation; even such a child of the Puritans as I
was could not read them. There were two anchors in that sea of
despair,--but feeble holds would they seem to-day,--the first volumes of
_Queechy_ and _The Wide, Wide World_. With the disingenuousness of
childhood I satisfied the rules of the school and my own conscience by
carrying home these two books, and no others, on alternate Sundays for
certainly two years. The only wonder in the matter was that the
transaction escaped my Mother's eye for so long a time. I read only
isolated scenes; of these the favorite was the one wherein Fleda carries
to the woods for the hungry visitor, who was of the English nobility,
several large and toothsome sections of green Apple pie and cheese. The
prominence given to that Apple pie in that book and in my two years
of reading idealized it. On a glorious day last October I drove to New
Canaan, the town which was the prototype of Queechy. Hungry as ever in
childhood from the clear autumnal air and the long drive from Lenox, we
asked for luncheon at what was reported to be a village hostelry. The
exact counterpart of Miss Cynthia Gall responded rather sourly that she
wasn't "boarding or baiting" that year. Humble entreaties for provender
of any kind elicited from her for each of us a slice of cheese and a
large and truly noble section of Apple pie, the very pie of Fleda's
tale, which we ate with a bewildered sense as of a previous existence.
This was intensified as we strolled to the brook under the Queechy Sugar
Maples, and gathered there the great-grandchildren of Fleda's
Watercresses, and heard the sound of Hugh's sawmills.
[Illustration: Drying Apples.]
Six hundred years ago English gentlewomen and goodwives were cooking
Apples just as we cook them now--they even had Apple pie. A delightful
recipe of the fourteenth century was for "Appeluns for a Lorde, in
opyntide." Opyntide was springtime; this was, therefore, a spring dish
fit for a lord.
Apple-moy and Apple-mos, Apple Tansy, and Pommys-morle were delightful
dishes and very rich food as well. The word pomatum has now no
association with _pomum_, but originally pomatum was made partly of
Apples. In an old "Dialog between Soarness and Chirurgi," written by one
Dr. Bulleyne in the days of Queen Elizabeth, is found this question and
its answer:--
"_Soarness._ How make you pomatum?
"_Chirurgi._ Take the fat of a yearly kyd one pound, temper it with
the water of musk-roses by the space of foure dayes, then take five
apples, and dresse them, and cut them in pieces, and lard them with
cloves, then boyl them altogeather in the same water of roses in
one vessel of glasse set within another vessel, let it boyl on the
fyre so long tyll it all be white, then wash them with the same
water of muske-roses, this done kepe it in a glasse and if you will
have it to smell better, then you must put in a little civet or
musk, or both, or ambergrice. Gentil women doe use this to make
theyr faces fayr and smooth, for it healeth cliftes in the lippes,
or in any places of the hands and face."
With the omission of the civet or musk I am sure this would make to-day
a delightful cream; but there is one condition which the "gentil woman"
of to-day could scarcely furnish--the infinite patience and leisure
which accompanied and perfected all such domestic work three centuries
ago. A pomander was made of "the maste of a sweet Apple tree being
gathered betwixt two Lady days," mixed with various sweet-scented drugs
and gums and Rose leaves, and shaped into a ball or bracelet.
The successor of the pomander was the Clove Apple, or "Comfort Apple,"
an Apple stuck solidly with cloves. In country communities, one was
given as an expression of sympathy in trouble or sorrow. Visiting a
country "poorhouse" recently, we were shown a "Comfort-apple" which had
been sent to one of the inmates by a friend; for even paupers have
friends.
"Taffaty tarts" were of paste filled with Apples sweetened and seasoned
with Lemon, Rose-water, and Fennel seed. Apple-sticklin',
Apple-stucklin, Apple-twelin, Apple-hoglin, are old English provincial
names of Apple pie; Apple-betty is a New England term. The Apple Slump
of New England homes was not the "slump-pye" of old England, which was a
rich mutton pie flavored with wine and jelly, and covered with a rich
confection of nuts and fruit.
[Illustration: Ancient Apple Picker, Apple Racks, Apple Parers,
Apple-butter Kettle, Apple-butter Paddle, Apple-butter Stirrer,
Apple-butter Crocks.]
In Pennsylvania, among the people known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, the
Apple frolic was universal. Each neighbor brought his or her own Apple
parer. This people make great use of Apples and cider in their food, and
have many curious modes of cooking them. Dr. Heilman in his paper on
"The Old Cider Mill" tells of their delicacy of "cider time" called
cider soup, made of equal parts of cider and water, boiled and thickened
with sweet cream and flour; when ready to serve, bits of bread or toast
are placed in it. "Mole cider" is made of boiling cider thickened to a
syrup with beaten eggs and milk. But of greatest importance, both for
home consumption and for the market, is the staple known as Apple
butter. This is made from sweet cider boiled down to about one-third its
original quantity. To this is added an equal weight of sliced Apples,
about a third as much of molasses, and various spices, such as cloves,
ginger, mace, cinnamon or even pepper, all boiled together for twelve or
fifteen hours. Often the great kettle is filled with cider in the
morning, and boiled and stirred constantly all day, then the sliced
Apples are added at night, and the monotonous stirring continues till
morning, when the butter can be packed in jars and kegs for winter use.
This Apple butter is not at all like Apple sauce; it has no granulated
appearance, but is smooth and solid like cheese and dark red in color.
Apple butter is stirred by a pole having upon one end a perforated blade
or paddle set at right angles. Sometimes a bar was laid from rim to rim
of the caldron, and worked by a crank that turned a similar paddle. A
collection of ancient utensils used in making Apple butter is shown on
page 211; these are from the collections of the Bucks County Historical
Society. Opposite page 214 is shown an ancient open-air fireplace and an
old couple making Apple butter just as they have done for over half a
century.
In New England what the "hired man" on the farm called "biled cider
Apple sass," took the place of Apple butter. Preferably this was made in
the "summer kitchen," where three kettles, usually of graduated sizes,
could be set over the fire; the three kettles could be hung from a
crane, or trammels. All were filled with cider, and as the liquid boiled
away in the largest kettle it was filled from the second and that from
the third. The fresh cider was always poured into the third kettle, thus
the large kettle was never checked in its boiling. This continued till
the cider was as thick as molasses. Apples (preferably Pound Sweets or
Pumpkin Sweets) had been chosen with care, pared, cored, and quartered,
and heated in a small kettle. These were slowly added to the thickened
cider, in small quantities, in order not to check the boiling. The rule
was to cook them till so softened that a rye straw could be run into
them, and yet they must retain their shape. This was truly a critical
time; the slightest scorched flavor would ruin the whole kettleful. A
great wooden, long-handled, shovel-like ladle was used to stir the sauce
fiercely until it was finished in triumph. Often a barrel of this was
made by our grandmothers, and frozen solid for winter use. The farmer
and "hired men" ate it clear as a relish with meats; and it was suited
to appetites and digestions which had been formed by a diet of salted
meats, fried breads, many pickles, and the drinking of hot cider
sprinkled with pepper.
Emerson well named the Apple the social fruit of New England. It ever
has been and is still the grateful promoter and unfailing aid to
informal social intercourse in the country-side; but the Apple tree is
something far nobler even than being the sign of cheerful and cordial
acquaintance; it is the beautiful rural emblem of industrious and
temperate home life. Hence, let us wassail with a will:--
"Here's to thee, old Apple tree!
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear Apples enow!"
[Illustration: Making Apple Butter.]