Even on a hot day, when most of the mosses and lichens have faded in the glare and drought, we still find the silvery-grey tracery flourishing on the shady side of the apple-trees, and on the pieces of branches that were snapped off and blown down into the long grass by the equinoctial gales. I usually gather up an armful of these branches, with their delicate pencil studies on a darker background, and carry them down to the bottom of the orchard with me—only to wonder why I didn’t leave them where they were till I returned, as I have to carry them back up the hill again presently!
It may seem weakly sentimental to those who do not understand, but I confess that, much as I love the smell of burning applewood, it always gives me a real pain to put on the fire twigs that are ornamented with moss or lichen. It seems heartless to destroy such beauty, even though there is “plenty more where that came from,” as people sometimes tell me.
In the summer I put the pieces of the grey-green branches, that I gather up about the orchard, in the empty hearths and grates.
Many of the old trees originally planted in the lower orchard have died or been blown down; the wind takes a heavy toll from these heights; we can’t have pergolas and rose arches up here, as they can lower down in the valley, unless we fasten them to very firm foundations.
As no previous owner in this happy-go-lucky district thought it worth whiles to put new stock in the place of the fruit-trees that have come down, there are plenty of open spaces, and comparatively little to obstruct the view as you sit against the bottom wall and look up the hillside. I am afraid this orchard is more ornamental than useful, for the pears are the hard bitter sort used for making perry, a drink that is very popular locally; and the apples are the equally uninteresting-to-the-taste cider variety. Yet they are so exceptionally beautiful, as the fruit turns crimson and yellow and golden brown, that the trees become a glory of colour in fruit-gathering time.
After all there is excuse for ornament without specific use, if a thing be very, very ornamental—and the orchard certainly is that.
The sun reaches well under the trees, where the wild flowers and grasses make a softly waving sea of colour. Of course, I know the grass ought to be kept cut, so as to prevent undue nourishment being taken from the earth for the support of “mere weeds.” But we pretend that it is properly cropped by “Hussy;” she is the mild-eyed dusky Jersey, belonging to the farmeress who supplies our milk, and is so-called, because she has a playful habit of kicking over the pail.
Occasionally she is turned in and roams about at meditative leisure, to the indignation of the small dog, who regards her as a hated rival. But once the fruit appears, she has to be removed; either she chokes herself with pears, or else they don’t agree with the butter; or various other things. Even a cow seems a complicated problem when you own a real one; and though I have only had cow-anxieties secondhand, so to speak, my acquaintance with “Hussy” has led me to wonder whether, on the whole, a tin of milk is a more sure and certain investment for sixpence-halfpenny.
But even when the orchard has a tenant, it is surprising how little damage she seems to do to the wild flowers. This is all the more remarkable if you have ever seen what devastation one simple-minded cow is capable of, if it indulges in but a ten minutes’ revel in your flower-garden! “Hussy” seems to eat carefully round the flowers, leaving the whole plant intact, which is more than a mowing machine will do, despite its much vaunted up-to-dateness. Civilisation has still a lot to learn.
Every season has its special flower show in this orchard. I only wish I could get the same never-failing succession of flowers in my garden that Nature does in hers.