The age-herald., 1900-10-23

wider elsewhere" and with it the mes l sage:
 My love is like a red, red apple | That ripens late in June; My love Is like melody
 That's sweetly set to tune" This parody on the familiar rose love | lines, whilst it does not measure precisely, is
 altogether very happy. Another apple, al-
 most flaming red, very large, and of per l feet form is from western North Carolina,
 and is sent by most gracious and lovely l woman. By contrast, an appreciative man, 1 greatly pleased by the red apple gossip, | sends some red cherries ripe from beyond, beyond the Alps" of his imagination. Her eyes am like de cherry, Her cheeks am like de rose; How lubs dat purity IT gal, Oar ain't nobody knows" The Sodom apple of the woods and fields
 are singularly enough called Hove" apples in some districts of the South, particularly in middle and southern Alabama and in 1 middle Georgia and South Carolina. This apple" which grows on a briar- weed, is 1 brilliant red, and almost the size of a | large pecan, though apple-shaped, and it l is sort of pod empty of everything except 1 a few tiny seed perhaps-"empty as apples | of Sodom." There is something of light l jest or sarcasm, unusual amongst our emo-
 tional Southerners, in calling this empty 1 pod of beautiful red love" apple. But however that may be, the real Hove" I apple is the red apple, which means, accord l ing to our Southern folklore, and probably in New England also, "I love you" l The apple, which has got many man
 and woman, beginning with Eve, into all
 sorts of troubles and joys, is the oldest l known edible fruit,and it remains in some
 respects the best The apple tree belongs 1 to the rose family, as is well known, and l is botanically called pyrus malus 1t has l been eaten as food for so long that even
 the land of it's nativity is in doubt, but it | is believed to have been a native of south 1 western Asia and of a large part of Flu
 rope as in Anatolia, the south of the Cau-
 that the apple tree was indigenous in Eu-
 rope, as in Anatolia, the south of the Cau- l casus and Northern Russia, and its culti- l vation began early everywhere. It has been | cultivated from time immemorial.
 
 life the apple has figured more constantly | than any other fruit, as it's kindred rose
 has figured most as flower. The ancients | so prized the apple that they gave its name | to fruits which we now call by other 1 names, notably the orange, golden apple l of the Hesperides," and we have the classic
 apple of discord; the apple of his eye,
 meaning some person cherished by another.
 and so on through the never-ending chap
 ter Of apples.
 Children, now as perhaps through all
 the ages past, prize most the apple amongst
 fruits. At Christmas no child would be | really happy unless there was a red apple
 in it's stocking, the good gift of the good
 Santa Claus. This is particularly true or
 children in rural and garden districts. The 1 greatest event of early summer in the child 1 life of the farm is the turning of the
 first reckoning apple of late May early l June. May apples, June" apples, no
 child of plantation farm quite forgets 1 these, even in the long afterwhiles of | changed conditions.
 "Tu lay you a red apple" the negro of
 the cotton fields declares in proffering a l wager to his gal; and his white brother of l TuIdl NSW EHBidHu IS constantly SdylllSt | "Fll bet you big red apple" Lovers of
 the play in Birmingham and elsewhither | remember tenderly this bet of red apple 1 in that exquisitely sweet and tender play | of "The Old Homestead" now unhappily out of fashion.
 | The child and the apple were very pret-
 tily illustrated by little child of Birmins-
 ham the other day. A man who had carried l out something of the spirit of Sir Walter l Scott's injunction, ''Get thee an ape and
 trudge the land, the leader of a juggler' s l band" stopped in front of a house. He be- | gan to grind discord from his box and his 1 monkey began to dance about. The family, l including the child, came out on the ve- 1 randa and the fun began. Wild in her ex>
 citement little Miss Threeyears rushed ln
 to her playthings, got a red apple, and | hurrying back gave the fruit to the l monkey, which proceeded to- peel it. Hay l ing done this, the animal ate the apple to
 the core, threw the core away, brushed
 the crumbs from the floor, and then quick 1 ly mounting to beautiful young woman $ lap, fell fast asleep Thus the apple gave 1 the child boundless joy.
 In Ireland, England, Scotland, and per- 1 haps in Continental Europe, in this day the
 most prized minor gift one may offer to l another is a barrel of American apples; l the redder the apples the more prized they 1 are. And it is a constant thing for persons along the North Atlantic coast to send bar rels of apples to friends in the "old coun- I try" An American who used to dwell 1 temporarily in the old country made up 1 his Christmas presents chiefly of barrels of | apples from his own country. The consump-