The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1906-11-24
ORIGIN OF OUR
FINEST. FRUITS
TIE HISTORY OF PEACHES, AP-
PIES, PEARS AND GRAPES
of the Apple From the ST.
bertan Crab-The Druids' Venera-
ton for the King of Fruits-The
Pear in Roman and Greek History.


THE principal fruits of the earth,
~ though long known, have been
so changed by cultivation that the
original ancestors would not recog-
nize their descendants, says the Am
erican Farmer. The peach is sup
posed to be a,pative of the hill coun-
try of China and was doubtless culti-
waited there at period so remote
that it antedates history. The apple,
most widely distributed of all fruit,
is said by science to have descended
from the Siberian crab which grew
wild over large parts Of Asia, Europe
and northern Africa. 1t is a far cry
from our Jonathans, Bellflowers and
Greetings to this sour little denizen
OF the steppes, but like many other
things on earth, including man, it
has no reason to be proud of its an
cestor. 1t was brought from Asia
into Greece, after having been cult
waited for many centuries, and the
Romans obtained it from the Greeks,
as they did many other good things.
In later ages it spread throughout the
world, but thrives best in the cooler
parts of the temperate zones. 1t
does not grow in the tropics but is
at it's best in certain sections of the
Mississippi valley. 1t is not only the
best but the most famous of fruits.
Though the Garden of Eden story, so
far as the apple is concerned, is some
what fanciful, it has been the means
of greatly extending the fame OF this
fruit. When Julius Caesar invaded
England, some years before the Chris
tian era, he gave the barbarians then
inhabiting that island their first taste
of apples and cider. Ever since then
it has been staple in the British
Isles and of course has been much
improved by cultivation during the
two thousand centuries that have
succeeded it's introduction.
There was a special reason that
caused the apple to become popular
throughout the countries of Northern
Europe. The prevailing religion was
that of the Druids, who worshipped
the mistletoe, and as this parasite
was found chiefly on oaks and apple
trees, these became objects of great
veneration and care to the devotees
of this strange superstition. The
priests and priestesses of the Druids
said prayers and. sang devotional
songs to these trees and believed
they had the power of granting fav-
ors. They were rigst, too, as far as
the apple tree is concerned, for what
greater blessing has been conferred
upon man, then or now, than the
luscious, health,giving fruit that falls
from their boughs ? A trace of this
old Druid veneration for the apple
tree still remains in certain parts OF
England, where the farmers on stated
occasions salute the trees and beg
them for good crops. They fill a
wassail bowl with cider and put in
it a piece OF toast, then pour some
of the cider on the roots, hang the
toast on the most barren branches,
after which all join hands around
and dance as they sing:
Here's to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou may'st bud, and whence
thou may'st blow.
And whence thou may'st bear apples
enow;
Hats full! Caps full!
Bushels and sacksfull!
Huzza!
ssThe pear, which in scientific horti-
culture is nearly allied to the apple,
seems to have been the most difficult
of the fruits to educate up from bar
barism to civilization. The tree on
which it grew was originally covered
with sharp thorns, which it took
MANY centuries of cultivation to elm
mate, and the fruit was practically
worthless. Even as late as the first
century of our era Pliny, the Roman
naturalist, though he described many
varieties known to him, declares that
ssall pears whatsoever are but q heavy