"Oh, these are wild trees, most ferocious trees," laughed Jack, "and we are tying them up lest they should run away, and in a little while we will untie them and they will trot about after us and give us fruit wherever we go. Oh, we will tame them; they shall have a ring through their noses like the buffalo!"
"That's not true," replied Franz gravely, "but there are wild and tame trees, the wild ones grow out in the woods like the crab-apples, and the tame ones in the garden like the pears and peaches at home. Which are these, papa?"
"They are not wild," I replied, "but grafted or cultivated, or, as you call them, tame trees. No European tree bears good fruit until it is grafted!" I saw a puzzled look come over the little boy's face as he heard this new word, and I hastened to explain it. "Grafting," I continued, "is the process of inserting a slip or twig of a tree into what is called an eye; that is, a knot or hole in the branch of another. This twig or slip then grows and produces, not such fruit as the original stock would have borne, but such as the tree from which it was taken would have produced. Thus, if we have a sour crab tree, and an apple tree bearing fine ribston pippins, we would take a slip of the latter, insert it in an eye of the former, and in a year or two the branch which would then grow would be laden with good apples."
"But," asked Ernest, "where did the slips of good fruit trees come from, if none grow without grafting?"
"From foreign countries," I replied. "It is only in the cold climate of our parts of the world that they require this grafting; in many parts of the world, in more southern latitudes than ours, the most luscious fruit trees are indigenous to the soil, and flourish and bear sweet, wholesome fruit, without the slightest care or attention being bestowed upon them; while in England and Germany, and even in France, these same trees require the utmost exertion of horticultural skill to make them bring forth any fruit whatever. Thus, when the Romans invaded England they found there nothing in the way of fruit trees but the crab-apple, nut bushes, and bramble bushes, but by grafting on these, fine apples, filberts, and raspberries were produced, and it was the same in our own dear Switzerland—all our fruit trees were imported."
"Were cherries, father? May we not even call cherries Swiss? I always thought they grew nowhere else."
"I am afraid we cannot even claim cherries as our own, not even the name of them; they are called cherries from Cerasus, a state of Pontus, in Asia, whence they were brought to Europe by Lucullus, a Roman general, about seventy years before Christ. Hazelnuts also came from Pontus; walnuts, again, came originally from Persia. As for grapes, they are of the greatest antiquity. We hear, if you remember, of Noah cultivating vines, and they have been brought from one place to another until they now are to be found in most parts of the civilized world."
"Do you think all these trees will grow?" asked Fritz, as we crossed Jackal River and entered our plantation at Tentholm: "here are lemons, pomegranates, pistachio nuts, and mulberries."
"I have little doubt of it," I replied; "we are evidently within the tropics, where such trees as these are sure to flourish. These pines, now, come from France, Spain, and Italy; the olives from Armenia and Palestine; the figs originally from the island of Chios; the peaches and apricots from Persia; plums from Damascus in Syria, and the pears of all sorts from Greece. However, if our countries have not been blessed in the same way with fruit, we have been given wisdom and skill, which has enabled us to import and cultivate the trees of other lands."
We thus talked and worked until every tree that required the treatment was provided with a stout bamboo prop, and then, with appetites which a gourmand might well have envied, we returned to Falconhurst. I think the good mother was almost alarmed at the way we fell upon the corned beef and palm-cabbage she set before us, but at length these good things produced the desired effect, and one after another declared himself satisfied. As we sat reclining after our labor and digesting our dinner, we discussed the various projects we had in contemplation. "I wish," said my wife, "that you would invent some other plan for climbing to the nest above us; I think that the nest itself is perfect—I really wish for nothing better, but I should like to be able to get to it without scaling that dreadful ladder every time; could you not make a flight of steps to reach it?"