Well do I remember one of the admonitions of my youth, brought upon me by an attempt to take apple-blossoms from a tree in bloom because they were beautiful. I was told that it was wrong to pluck for any purpose the flowers of fruit trees, because the possible fruitage might thereby be reduced. That is, feeding the eye was improper, but it was always in order to conserve all the possibilities for another organ of the body. In those days we had not learned that nature provides against contingencies, and that not one-tenth of all the blossoms would be needed to “set” as much fruit as the tree could possibly mature.

The apple, well called the king of fruits, is worthy of all admiration as a fruit; but I do not see why that need interfere in the least with its consideration as an object of beauty. On the contrary, such consideration is all the better for the apple, which is not only most desirable and pleasing in its relation to the dessert, the truly celebrated American pie, the luscious dumpling of the housewife, and the Italian’s fruit-stand of our cities, but is at the same time a benefaction to the eye and the sense of beauty, in tree, in blossom, and in fruit.

It is of the esthetic value of the apple I would write, leaving its supreme place in pomology unassailed. Look at the young apple tree in the “nursery row,” where it has been growing a year since it was “budded” that is, mysteriously changed from the wild and untamed fruit of nature to the special variety designed by the nurseryman. It is a straight, shapely wand, in most varieties, though it is curious to find that some apples, notably the favorite Rhode Island Greening, start in promptly to be picturesquely crooked and twisty. As it grows and branches under the cultivation and guidance of the orchardist, it maintains a lusty, hearty aspect, its yellowish, reddish or brownish twigs again according to variety spreading out to the sun and the air freely. A decade passes, and the sparse showing of bloom that has decorated it each spring gradually gives place to a great glory of flowers. The tree is about to bear, and it assumes the character of maturity; for while it grows on soberly for many years, there is now a spreading, a sort of relaxation, very different from the vigorous upshooting of its early youth. After a crop or two, the tree has become, to the eye, the familiar orchard member, and it leans a little from the blasts of winter, twists aside from the perpendicular, spreads comfortably over a great expanse of ground, and settles down to its long, useful, and truly beautiful life.

While the young orchard is trim and handsome, I confess to a greater liking for the rugged old trees that have followed blossom with fruit in unstinted profusion for a generation. There is a certain character of sturdy good-will about these substantial stems that the clinging snows only accentuate in winter. The framework of limb and twig is very different from that of the other trees, and the twisty lines seem to mean warmth and cheer, even against a frosty sky. And these old veterans are house trees, too they do not suggest the forest or the broad expanse of nature, but, instead, the proximity of man and the home, the comfortable summer afternoon under their copious leafage, the great piles of ruddy-cheeked fruit in autumn.

I need hardly say anything of the apple-blossoms, for those who read these words are almost certain to have long appreciated their delicately fragrant blush and white loveliness. The apricot and the cherry are the first of the fruit trees to sing the spring song, and they cover themselves with white, in advance of any sign of green leaves on their twigs. The apple has an advantage; coming more deliberately, the little pink buds are set amidst the soft greens of the opening foliage, and the leaves and flowers expand together in their symphony of color and fragrance. The grass has grown lush by this time, the dandelions are punctuating it with gold, and everything is in the full riot of exuberant springtime.

But there are apples and apples and apples. Even the plain orchard gives us a difference in flowers, as well as in tree aspect. Notice the trees this coming May; mark the flat, white flowers on one tree, the cup-shaped, pink-veined blooms on another. Follow both through the fruiting, and see whether the sweeter flower brings the more sugary fruit. This fact ascertained, perhaps it may be followed up by observation of the distinctive color of the twigs and young branches for there are wide differences in this respect, and the canny tree-grower knows his pets afar.

Perhaps there is a “crab” in the old orchard, ready to give the greatest burst of bloom for the crab-apple flower is usually finer and more fragrant than any other of the cultivated forms. It is an especial refuge of the birds and the bees, you will find, and it invites them with its rare fragrance and deeper blush, so that they may work all the more earnestly at the pollination without which all this richness of bloom would be ineffective in nature’s reproductive scheme.

This same crab-apple is soon to be, as its brilliant fruit matures, a notable object of beauty, for few ornamental trees can vie with its display of shining color. There was a great old crab right in the flower garden of my boyhood home, amid quaint box-trees, snowballs and lilacs. Lilies-of-the-valley flourished in its shadow, the delicate bleeding-heart mingled with old-fashioned irises and peonies at its feet. From early spring until mid-August the crab-apple held court of beauty there and an always hungry boy often found something in addition to beauty in the red and yellow fruits that were acid but aromatic.

With a little attention, if one would plant crab-apples for their loveliness of fruit hue and form, a fine contrast of color may be had; for some varieties are perfect in clear yellow, against others in deepest scarlet, bloom-covered with blue haze, and yet others which carry all the colors from cream to crimson the latter as the warm sun paints deeper.

Why do we not plant more fruit trees for beauty? Not one of our familiar fruits will fail us in this respect, if so considered. The apricot will often have its white flowers open to match the purity of the last snow, the cherry will follow with a burst of bloom, the apples and crab-apples will continue the show, aided by plum and pear and peach, and the quince ah, there’s a flower in a green enamel setting! will close the blooming-time. But the cherry fruits now redden in shining roundness, the earlier apples throw rich gleams of color to the eye, and there is chromatic beauty until frost bids the last russets leave their stems, leaving bare the framework of the trees, to teach us in lines of symmetry and efficiency how strength and elegance are combined in nature’s handiwork. Do you fear that some of the fruit may be taken? What of it? Plant for beauty, and the fruit is all extra give it away freely, and pass on to others some of God’s good gifts, to your own true happiness!

There is another crab-apple that is distinctive in its elegance, color and fragrance. It is the true “wild crab” of Eastern North America, and one who makes its acquaintance in blooming time will never forget it. The tree is not large, and it is likely to be set with crooked, thorny branches; but the flowers! Deep pink or rosy red chalices, rather longer than the commonplace apple-blossom, and hanging on long and slender stems in a certain picturesquely stiff disposition, they are a joy for the senses of sight and fragrance. This notable native may be found on rich slopes and in dry glades it is not fond of swamps. It is grown by some enlightened nurserymen, too, and can well be planted in the home grounds to their true adornment. The blossoms give way to form handsome yellow fruits, about an inch in diameter, which are themselves much more ornamental than edible, for even the small boy will not investigate a second time the bitter flesh. I have heard that a cider of peculiar “hardness” and potency, guaranteed to unsettle the firmest head, is made from these acid fruits but I have not found it necessary to extend my tree studies in that direction.

The states west of Kansas do not know this lovely wild crab, to which the botanists give a really euphonious designation as Pyrus coronaria. There is a prairie-states crab-apple, which I have never seen, but which, I am told, has nothing like the beauty of our exquisite Eastern native. This Western species lacks the long stem and the bright color of the flowers of our favorite, and its fruits, while quite as viciously sour, are a dull and greasy green. The great West has many other things, but we have the wild crab-apple.

Rather between, as to beauty, is the native crab-apple of the Southland, which is known as the Soulard crab. It is not as attractive as our own Eastern gem, a pure native possession, and one which our foreign friends envy us.

Curiously enough, our own fruiting apple is not a native of America. It was at a meeting of a New England pomological association that I heard, several years ago, an old man of marvelous memory and power of observation tell of his recollections of seventy years, notable among which was his account of seeing the first good apples, as a boy, during a visit in the state of New York. Think of it! the most widely grown and beautiful of all our fruits hardly older than the railroad in America! We owe the apples we eat to Europe, for the start, the species being probably of Himalayan origin. America has greatly developed the apple, however, as one who has looked over the fruit tables at any great exposition will promptly testify, and nearly all our really good varieties are of American origin. Moreover, we are the greatest apple-growers in the world, and the yearly production probably exceeds a hundred millions of barrels.

The curious story of “Johnny Appleseed” is given us by historians, who tell us of this semi-religious enthusiast who roamed barefoot over the wilds of Ohio and Indiana a century ago, sowing apple-seeds in the scattered clearings, and living to see the trees bearing fruit, selections from which probably are interwoven among the varieties of today. New varieties of apples, by the way, come from seeds sown, and trees grown from them, with a bare chance that one in ten thousand may be worth keeping. When a variety seems thus worthy, “buds” or “scions” from the original tree are “budded” or “grafted” by the nurseryman into young seedling trees, which are thus changed into the selected sort. To sow the seeds of your favorite Baldwin does not imply that you will get Baldwin trees, by any means; you will more likely have a partial reversion to the acid and bitter original species.

It is not only for the fruit that we are indebted to the Old World, but also for some distinctively beautiful and most ornamental varieties of the apple, not by any means as well known among us as they ought to be. The nurserymen sell as an ornamental small tree a form known as “Parkman’s double-flowering crab,” which produces blooms of much beauty, like delicate little roses. Few of them, however, know of the glorious show that the spring brings where there is a proper planting of the Chinese and Japanese crab-apples, with some other hybrids and varieties. To readers in New England a pilgrimage to Boston is always in order. In the Public Gardens are superb specimens of these crab-apples from the Orient, as well as those native to this continent, and for several weeks in May they may be enjoyed. They are enjoyed by the Bostonians, who are in this, as in many things, better served by their authorities than is any other American city. What other city, for instance, gives its people such a magnificent spring show of hyacinths, tulips, daffodils and the like?

It is at the wonderful Arnold Arboretum, that Mecca of tree-lovers just outside of Boston and really within its superbly managed park system, that the greatest show of the “pyrus family,” as the apples and pears are botanically called, may be found. Here have been gathered the lovely blooming trees of all the hardy world, to the delight of the eye and the nose, and the education of the mind. To me the most impressive of all was a wonderful Siberian crab (one must look for Pyrus baccata on the label, as the Arboretum folks are not in love with “common” names) close by the little greenhouses. Its round head was purely white, with no hint of pink, and the mass of bloom that covered it was only punctuated by the green of the expanding leaves. The especial elegance of this crab was in its whiteness, and that elegance was not diminished by the later masses of little yellow and red, almost translucent, fruits.

A somewhat smaller tree is commonly called the Chinese flowering apple, and its early flowers remind one strongly of the beauty of our own wild crab, as they are deeper in color than most of the crabs, being almost coral-red in bud. This “spectabilis,” as it is familiarly called, is a gem, as it opens the season of the apple blooms with its burst of pink richness.

The beauty-loving Japanese have a festival at the time of the cherry-blooming and it is altogether a festival of beauty, not connected with the food that follows the flowers. They actually dare to cut the blossoms, too, for adornment, and all the populace take time to drink in the message of the spring. Will we workaday Americans ever dare to “waste” so much time, and go afield to absorb God’s provision of soul and sense refreshment in the spring, forgetting for the time our shops and desks, our stores and marts?

Professor Sargent, that deep student of trees who has built himself a monument, which is also a beneficence to all mankind, in the great volumes of his “Silva of North America,” lives not far from Boston, and he loves especially that jewel of the apple family which, for want of a common name, I must designate scientifically as Pyrus floribunda. On his own magnificent estate, as well as at the Arboretum, this superb shrub or small tree riots in rosy beauty in early spring. While the leaves do come with these flowers, they are actually crowded back out of apparent sight by the straight wands of rose-red blooms, held by the twisty little tree at every angle and in indescribable beauty. If the visitor saw nothing but this Floribunda apple “abundant flowering” sure enough on his pilgrimage, he might well be satisfied, especially if he then and there resolved to see it again, either as he planted it at home or journeyed hither another spring for the enlargement of his soul.

There are other of these delightful crabs or apples to be enjoyed Ringo, Kaido, Toringo nearly all of Japanese origin, all of distinct beauty, and all continuing that beauty in handsome but inedible fruits that hang most of the summer. My tree-loving friends can well study these, and, I hope, plant them, instead of repeating continually the monotonously familiar shrubs and trees of ordinary commerce.

But I have not spoken enough of one notable feature of the every-day apple tree that we may see without a journey to the East. The fully set fruiting branch of an apple tree in health and vigor, properly nurtured and protected against fungous disease by modern “spraying,” is a thing of beauty in its form and color. See those deep red Baldwins shine overhead in the frosty air of early fall; note the elegance of form and striping on the leathery-skinned Ben Davis; appreciate true apples of gold set in green enamel on a tree of the sunny Bellefleur! These in the fall; but it is hardly full summer before the closely set branches of Early Harvest are as beautiful as any orange-tree, or the more upright Red Astrachan is ablaze with fruit of red and yellow. Truly, an apple orchard might be arranged to give a series of pictures of changing beauty of color and growth from early spring until fall frost, and then to follow with a daily panorama of form and line against snow and sky until the blossoms peeped forth again. Let us learn, if we do not already love the apple tree, to love it for its beauty all the year!