In Pastures Green

by Peter McArthur

[JANUARY]

Ekfrid, Jan. 3.—We are a hopelessly unromantic people. We go about even the most delightful of our affairs in a sadly hum-drum way. Take the opening of an apple-pit in winter, for instance. If the "well-greaved Greeks" had anything like this in their lives they would have approached the task with appropriate songs and ceremonial dances. They would have done justice to the winter-ripened apple,

"That hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance and provençal song and sunburnt mirth."

Now notice how prosaically the Canadian farmer undertakes the work. After the women folks have been nagging him for a couple of weeks he begins to feel apple-hungry himself, and some fine morning he takes the long-handled shovel and an old axe and proceeds to open the pit. The snow is first carefully shovelled away from the little treasure-house of autumn fruitfulness and then the covering of frozen earth is chopped away. This uncovers the protecting layer of straw, which is removed, laying bare the apples. What a gush of perfume burdens the frosty air! Spies, Baldwins, Russets, and Pippins give their savour aright, and if a man had a touch of poetry in his soul he would begin at once to fashion lyrics. But there is no poetry. He simply remarks to himself that they have kept well, fills a bag, stuffs back the straw and piles on the earth and snow to keep out the frost. He then carries the bag to the kitchen and announces that he expects to have "apple-sass" for dinner. Possibly he wipes an apple on his sleeve and eats it while going to the barn to finish his chores, but on the whole he treats the event as if it were an ordinary part of the day's work.

Although our Canadian apples are good at all times, they are now at their best. There is a flavour to a winter-ripened apple that surpasses praise. It has a fullness and tang that provoke the appetite more than it satisfies. A winter evening spent around a roaring fire with a plateful of well-polished apples within reach, and old friends to talk with, is something to cheer even the soul of a pessimist. As for the children, their delight is twofold when the apple-pit has been opened. Not only do they gorge themselves, but they dream of the affluence they will enjoy by bartering apples at school. The school price of apples varies, but yesterday a sound, rosy Spy was disposed of for two empty rifle cartridges (thirty-two long), the stub of a lead-pencil, and a copper harness rivet without a washer. From this you can figure out how much boy bric-a-brac a bushel would buy. It is possible that it was by just such bartering as this that some of our financial magnates developed their wonderful business sagacity. Perhaps it was by carrying the best apples to the teacher that they learned the first principles of lobbying and the value of standing in with the powers that be. It does not seem at all unreasonable to suppose that the boy who learns at school how to dispose of his apples most profitably will later pick plums and cut melons. Our educational system may have sides to it that are not recognised by the Education Department.

The man who induced the pioneers of this district to plant orchards should have his name emblazoned on the pages of history like "apples of gold in pictures of silver." I remember him as a hale Scotchman of eighty, to whom a twenty-mile walk to visit an old friend was simply a holiday jaunt. In his youth he could do fifty miles a day and sell trees at every farmhouse he passed. He canvassed the country from London to Windsor, and probably sold more trees than any other agent that ever covered the territory. He was known as an honourable man, and when he praised a particular apple his words were believed. By his efforts an orchard was planted on almost every farm, and although the apples he sold could not compare with the highly-developed apples of the present, they were good, and demonstrated beyond a doubt what a glorious district this is for fruit. Most of the early orchards were planted too closely because of the scarcity of cleared land, and the trees were seldom pruned properly, but they yielded a store of apples that added a zest to the simple fare of the pioneers. The orchards he sold have all died out, but they have been replaced by others, for no one here would think of being without apples. I know of only one tree of his selling that is still in existence. When a mature tree it suffered some injury that checked it for a time until a second growth started near the root. The original tree died away, but the second growth is bearing every year, and it seems destined to a long lease of life. I do not know the age which apple trees attain, but this one is now over sixty years old. It is what was called a rib apple, a kind no longer known to the nurseries. In its time it was counted the best apple in the township, but it cannot compare with the wonderful fruit of the present. It furnished good eating in its day, and deserves to have a tablet affixed to it as a survivor of the pioneer orchards.

It is a pleasure to be able to record the passing of the dried apple. It was the precursor of the prune as a boarding-house dish, and was once widely used as a substitute for food. They used to have paring-bees, where the young people peeled, quartered, and cored the apples, and then threaded them like beads to be strung up over the stove to dry. While drying they served as "a murmurous haunt of flies." Every farmhouse once had its apple-screen, made of laths, which was hung over the stove with the pipe going through it for the purpose of drying apples. Its contents were also popular with the flies, and, as screen-doors were unknown then, you can guess how plentiful the flies were. Dried apples were once an article of commerce, but it is long since I have seen any or have been insulted by having them offered to me at the table. I am told that, although the farmers no longer dry apples, there are factories where apples are desiccated—desecrated, one woman explained—and that they may be found wherever prunes and dried apricots are offered for sale. It may be so; I do not know, and do not want to know. I am sure that dried apples by any other name would taste as leathery and unpalatable. I am content to know that they are no longer used in the country. Sound apples, fresh from the pit, are good enough for me.

Jan. 5.—I used to wonder why our nature writers never write stories about the common domestic cow. She is certainly of more importance than wild animals, and yet she seldom figures in literature except in the herd book and in market reports. I say this used to puzzle me, but it puzzles me no longer. Charles G. D. Roberts and Thompson Seton and Kipling can tell us the secret thoughts of wolves and bears and tigers and crocodiles and such critters just as easy as easy, but cows are beyond them. Cows are deep. They think thoughts that are beyond the poets. You can't fool me about cows, because I am living with them just now. Acting as valet to a bunch of cows and young cattle has given me a chance to study them closely, and my respect for them is increasing every day. Cows certainly think, but only when they have the proper environment. They don't think all over the place like college professors and eminent people generally. It has always been very disconcerting to me to meet great men on the street, or in the railway station, or on the crowded rear platform of a street car, and to find them thinking all the time. They seem to have developed thinking into a bad habit, but not so with cows. Cows can spend days and days without thinking, but when the conditions are right they think unutterable things. And they are very human in this. A well-known writer told me once that he can never think freely unless he begins by thinking about a telegraph pole. He couldn't explain why it was, but if he once got his mind completely concentrated on a telegraph pole ideas would at once come surging into his brain. It is the same with cows, and the object that inspires them to their loftiest flights is a gate. Let no one be surprised at this. Even philosophers have mighty things to say about gates. What says Omar?

"Up from earth's centre to the Seventh gate
I rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate,
And many a knot unriddled by the way
But not the master-knot of human fate."

Fate—there you have it. Fate is undoubtedly the favourite subject of thought with meditative cows. You have only to look at them and notice their awful solemnity and the gravity of their mild and magnificent eyes to know that they are not thinking of any ordinary matter like the beef trust, or the high cost of hay, or anything of that sort. But it is not enough to have a cow see a gate to start her thinking. You must try to drive her through it. In fact, I am not sure that one lone cow would start thinking even in a gate. You must have a herd of them and it usually works out in about this way. After you have run yourself out of breath gathering the herd the boss will take the lead and the skittish young cattle will be bringing up the rear. As soon as the boss gets into the gate where none of the others can pass her a great idea will strike her and she will stop to chew her cud and think it over. If you are in a hurry you will probably start yelling at her, but it will do no good. Nothing can interrupt her profound thoughts and your yelling will only disturb the young cattle and start them scampering around the field. In all probability you will start throwing clods and sticks, and if your aim is good you may jolt her through the gate, but you will find that before further progress can be made you will have to gather the young cattle again. When you get your little flock to the gate once more you will find that the deputy boss becomes seized of a great idea when she reaches the middle, and the business of yelling, throwing clods, and gathering the young cattle has to be done all over again. There have been times when it has taken me half an hour to get a thoughtful herd of cows through a twelve-foot gate, and by the time the last of the young cattle passed through, a hair's-breadth ahead of the toe of my boot, my temper "had gone where the dead crabs go." Still, I always solace myself with the reflection that I have been the first to discover that cows think.