In Pastures Green

by Peter McArthur

I sing the apples of my eye
And I shall sing with all my might,
For here around me, swinging high,
They tease my senses with delight.
My palate yearns! they charm my sight!
My lips with longing overflow—
(Excuse me while I take a bite!)
The Apples of Ontario.

From Astrachan to Northern Spy,
Alike they rouse my appetite
As they were wont in days gone by,
When hearts were bold and fingers light;
When barefoot pirates sought at night
The orchards where they used to grow
And filled their shirts ere put to flight—
The Apples of Ontario.

Superb in dumplings! prime in pie!
When baked they'd tempt an anchorite!
Supreme in "sass," good even dry,
But ripe and mellow, peerless quite!
I know, good friends, it is not right
Of me to tantalise you so!
If you're without—I mourn your plight—
The Apples of Ontario!

ENVOI

Prince, do not heed the words of spite
Or slurs that envious rivals throw!
We have them free from scab and blight,
The Apples of Ontario!
Especially around Glencoe!

Sept. 16.—Say, do horse-hairs turn into eels? There was a time when I firmly believed that they did, but it was so long ago that I had forgotten all about it. This morning when they told me that there was a "live horse-hair" in the tub of rain-water beside the cistern I remembered the old belief and proceeded to investigate. The creature certainly did look like a living horse-hair, as it swam around the tub like a sea-serpent. It was about ten inches long and had no head that was visible to the naked eye. It was the slimmest thing for its length that I ever saw. When I was a boy I had seen these creatures in the watering-trough at the barn and firmly believed that they were horse-hairs that had come to life in the water. Furthermore, I believed that if they found their way into the creek they would grow into great eels of the kind from whose skins they make shoe-laces. Of course, the children were quite ready to believe the old explanation of these long, snaky wrigglers, but with a Century Encyclopædia within reach, I could not resist getting at the truth of the matter. After several vain attempts under "eel" and "horse-hair," I finally got a line from "hair-worm," and located the mystery as a specimen of the Gordius aquaticus. They are described as a family of nematoid worms. They have an elongated, filiform body with a ventral cord. The life history of the little creature is interesting:

"In the young stage they live in the body cavity of predatory insects and are provided with a mouth. At the pairing time they pass into the water, where they become mature. The embryos, which are provided with spines, bore through the egg-membrane, migrate into insect larvæ, and there encyst. Water beetles and other predatory aquatic insects eat the encysted young forms, which then develop in the body cavity of their new and larger host to young Gordiidæ."

There you are. Another belief of childhood has been exploded by some painstaking scientist, who has made a careful study of the "horse-hair eels."

A walk to the orchard showed me that after all my thinning of apples I did not take off nearly enough. Half a dozen big, heavily-loaded limbs were broken off by the last windstorm. I couldn't have propped them up even if I had tried, for they were all top branches, but it is some consolation that it was the Ben Davis trees that were affected the most. In doing the thinning I attended to the Spies most carefully, as they were the most important, and, though I took off a cruel lot, if I had the job to do over again I would take off still more. The Spies, Baldwins, Pippins, and Kings have all the fruit they can carry, and I am sure the unusual size of the apples is due to the thinning. I thinned several of the Ben Davis quite severely, and the apples on them are fully twice the size of those on the trees that were neglected. No, I haven't sold the apples yet. The regular dealers have not made me an offer, but I have received offers from various parts of the country where a number of consumers are willing to club together and take the whole crop. My only reason for not accepting these offers at once is that I do not know how I am going to pick and pack the apples by myself. Experts say that I shall have over two hundred barrels of good shipping apples, but how am I to get experienced packers? The dealers have employed every man in the country who knows anything about such work. The children and I could probably pick them all right, but I hate to undertake the job of grading them for fear I should be arrested for not doing the work right. But, like Sentimental Tommy, I hope to "find a w'y."

When walking through the orchard I was sorry to see a lot of good apples, Maiden's Blushes and sweet apples, rotting on the ground, but I can do nothing about them. There is no market for them, and the local evaporator can take only a limited supply because of the scarcity of labour. And even if I could sell them to the evaporator the price paid is so trifling that, I am told, the best a man can do is to earn day-labourer's wages without counting the value of the apples. It seems too bad to have good apples rotting when there are thousands of poor people and apple-hungry children who would be glad to get them. I would willingly give the apples to any one who wants them rather than see them waste, but every one in the country has enough, and even town people near by have friends among the farmers who keep them supplied.