Pleasant Talk About Fruits, Flowers and Farming

by Henry Ward Beecher

While the character of the ladies and gentlemen present makes it proper for me to hide, with due modesty, my knowledge of the apple in the department of culture, there is what may be called the Political Economy of the Apple, by which I mean the apple in its relation to domestic comfort and commerce; and on that subject I think I can speak, if not to edification, at least without fear of being tracked and cornered.

The apple is, beyond all question, the American fruit. It stands absolutely alone and unapproachable, grapes notwithstanding. Originating in another hemisphere, neither in its own country, nor in any other to which it has been introduced, has it flourished as in America. It is conceded in Europe that, for size, soundness, flavor, and brilliancy of coloring, the American apple stands first,—a long way first.

But it is American in another sense. This is a land in which diffusion is the great law. This arises from our institutions, and from the character which they have imprinted upon our people. In Europe, certain classes, having by their intelligence and wealth and influence the power to attract all things to themselves, set the current from the center toward the surface. In America, the simple doctrines that the common people are the true source of political power, that the government is directly responsible to them, and therefore that moral culture, intelligence, and training in

politics are indispensable to the common people, on whom every state is to rest safely, have wrought out such results that in all departments of justice and truth, as much as in politics, there is a tendency toward the popularizing of everything, and learning, or art, or any department of culture, is made to feel the need of popularity; a word which is very much despised by classicists, but which may be used in a sense so large as to make it respectable again. Things that reach after the universal, that include in them all men in their better and nobler nature, are in a proper sense popular; and in this country, amusement and refinement and wealth itself, first or last, are obliged to do homage to the common people, and so to be popular. Nor is it otherwise in respect to horticulture. Of fruits, I think this, above all others, may be called the true democratic fruit. There is some democracy that I think must have sprung from the first apple. Of all fruits, no other can pretend to vie with the apple as the fruit of the common people. This arises from the nature of the tree and from the nature of the fruit.

First, as to the tree. It is so easy of propagation, that any man who is capable of learning how to raise a crop of corn can learn how to plant, graft or bud, transplant, and prune an apple-tree,—and then eat the apples. It is a thoroughly healthy and hardy tree; and that under more conditions and under greater varieties of stress than perhaps any other tree. It is neither dainty nor dyspeptic. It can bear high feeding and put up with low feeding. It is not subject to gout and scrofula, as plums are; to eruptions and ruptures, as the cherry is; or to apoplexy, as the pear is. The apple-tree may be pampered, and may be rendered effeminate in a degree; but this is by artificial perversion. It is naturally tough as an Indian, patient as an ox, and fruitful as the Jewish Rachel. The apple-tree is among trees what the cow is among domestic animals in northern zones, or what the camel of the Bedouin is.

And, like all thoroughly good-natured, obliging, patient

things, it is homely. For beauty is generally unfavorable to good dispositions. (I am talking to the ladies now.) There seems to be some dissent; but this is the orthodox view. It seems as if the evil incident to human nature had struck in, with handsome people, leaving the surface fair; while the homely are so because the virtue within has purged and expelled the evil, and driven it to the skin. Have you never seen a maiden that lovers avoided because she was not comely, who became, nevertheless, and perhaps on that account, the good angel of the house, the natural intercessor for afflicted children, the one to stay with the lonely when all the gay had gone a-gadding after pleasure, the soft-handed nurse, the story-teller and the book-reader to the whole brood of eager eyes and hungry ears in the nursery; in short, the child’s ideal of endless good-nature, self-sacrifice, and intercessorship, the Virgin Mary of the household,—mother of God to their love, in that she brings down to them the brightest conceptions of what God may peradventure be? And yet, such are stigmatized old maids, though more fruitful of everything that is good (except children) than all others. One fault only do we find with them,—that they are in danger of perverting our taste, and leading us to call homeliness beautiful. All this digression, ladies and gentlemen, is on account of my dear Aunt Esther, who brought me up,—a woman so good and modest that she will spend ages in heaven wondering how it happened that she ever got there, and that the angels will always be wondering why she was not there from all eternity.

I have said, with some digressions, that the apple-tree is homely; but it is also hardy, and not only in respect to climate. It is almost indifferent to soil and exposure. We should as soon think of coddling an oak-tree or a chestnut; we should as soon think of shielding from the winter white pine or hemlock, as an apple-tree. If there is a lot too steep for the plow or two rocky for tools, the farmer dedicates it to an apple orchard. Nor do the trees betray

his trust. Yet, the apple loves the meadows. It will thrive in sandy loams, and adapt itself to the toughest clay. It will bear as much dryness as a mullein stalk, and as much wet, almost, as a willow. In short, it is a genuine democrat. It can be poor, while it loves to be rich; it can be plain, although it prefers to be ornate; it can be neglected, notwithstanding it welcomes attention. But, whether neglected, abused, or abandoned, it is able to take care of itself, and to be fruitful of excellences. That is what I call being democratic.

The apple-tree is the common people’s tree, moreover, because it is the child of every latitude and every longitude on this continent. It will grow in Canada and Maine. It will thrive in Florida and Mexico. It does well on the Atlantic slope; and on the Pacific the apple is portentous. Newton sat in an orchard, and an apple, plumping down on his head, started a train of thought which opened the heavens to us. Had it been in California, the size of the apples there would have saved him the trouble of much thinking thereafter, perhaps, opening the heavens to him, and not to us. Wherever Indian corn will grow, the apple will thrive; and wherever timothy-grass will ripen its seed, the apple will exist fruitfully.