She looked then much as she does now: a clean façade of lemon yellow, with white shutters on the windows and a tall black door. A home of perfect symmetry, were it not for the ell on her left flank. In the dooryard, we planted the sapling that would one day grow into the noble elm that now stands forty feet and gives us shade in summer.

  It was then that I returned to Albany to fetch my furniture and daughters.

  On the Growth of My Orchard

  And so it was that my little family came to settle in this remote station in the north woods. I will admit that there were days when I faltered in my conviction. How I recall the miserable cold that accompanied our journey, the rude inn where we took shelter. An icy rain had fallen on the day of our arrival, the world was cloaked in glass, the girls stared wide-eyed at the crystal palace that awaited. From behind us in the sleigh, the furniture creaked its protest; the piano hammers leapt against the strings. Oh, I thought, would I had waited until summer, to reward them with limpid streams and wild berries! To take such tender children from their home seemed nothing less than extirpation. And so that their father might pursue his fancy?

  What had I done?

  But the die was cast, and work awaited.

  How swiftly did the months then follow! We took our cuttings of the tree in February, grafted them in March, and planted them in April. By summer, a neat square of a hundred little saplings was rising beneath their Mother’s watchful gaze. The first gave fruit the third autumn of our sojourn; the following year, some forty-seven trees were blossoming, and the fifth lifted our census to ninety-three.

  The September of that year, I gathered 2,397 apples, less the taxes imposed by my coterie. We were ready to bring them to market.

  The question then arose of what to call our apple. Nature cares not of the names imposed by men, and yet one must mull carefully, for the farmer who does not keep vigilant, will find appellation thrust upon him. Mr. Lee, of Bettsbridge, has not been served by the popular name given to his pale, paired, wrinkly codlings; nor Mr. Palmer his long brown fruits of such alarming taste.

  By then both the snows of winter and long summer evenings had left my daughters and me many an hour to consider the name by which the world would come to know our apple. My girls, who had learned to graft before they learned their letters, could not be counted on for their vocabulary, but what they lacked in learning, they made up in instinct. As I read to them the list of varieties in The Pomological Manual, they hurrah’d their favorites, Mary’s earnest gaze brightening each time I lighted upon a Royal or a Regal, while her impish sister cast her vociferous vote for the Winter Monster, the Hogsnout, and the Bright Young Maid. None fully won their hearts, however; nor did the tradition of using place-names meet their approval. No, the apple’s name should be our family’s own, for, barring the snotty ragamuffin, we’d been the first to taste it. But what? Swiftly did my daughters dispense of Osgood’s Pippin as too ordinary, Osgood’s Nonpareil as too immodest, Osgood’s Rose too floral, Osgood’s Prize too presumptuous, Osgood’s Belle too Gallic, Osgood’s Harvest too matter-of-fact. Osgood’s Red didn’t do justice to the hints of green that made it so lovely. Osgood’s Dessert sounded like a pastry, while Osgood’s Sugar ignored the complexity of the fruit. I need not comment on the sad fate of Osgood’s Wife.

  Many nights we played this game. For a while, we settled upon the Osgood Beauty, and the Osgood Glory was a durable selection, before the girls eventually dismissed it as too martial. Defeated, I even considered, simply, Osgood’s Apple. Slowly, the novelty of the search began to dim. Increasingly, we passed our evenings reading, or singing, and Mary’s voice could conjure angels, while Alice on the fife brought joy to all who heard. Together we composed many a ballad about our woods, and the animals within. But still, I pondered on my apple. Was this my pomomania? Too many times had I been mismeasured: call a man mad once and he will be forever vigilant. But what could satisfy me? For a Fruit is a Thing, while that which I was searching for was nothing less than that which could transcend the tangible, speak to astonishment, invoke not only pleasure, but the perception of something vast, supernal, nothing less than enchantment itself.

  Which, in my greatest eloquence, I at last propounded to my little audience.

  “You mean Wonder?” they asked, at once.

  Some Notes Concerning Technique

  Long have I thought that I should write a book on technique, as I have learned much over the years that may aid others in their orchards. For now, I will simply state, for the record, my position on some of the great debates of our profession.

  Pruning should be done in moderation. There are those who would remove crossing branches, and others who might trim the young trees to assure a regular form. If this is your want, then who am I to deny you, but as my head bears an unruly mane, so I prefer my trees. The dead branch might meet my saw, but I am cautious in my amputations, for even dead branches serve purposes, and who knows if it is not the nesting bird that over-watches your garden?

  The gall of a green lizard does not prevent rot.

  A painted tree is an abomination; they should be adorned only in Moss and Lichen.

  Placing a stone in the forks of a tree branch is a child’s charm; it should not be practiced systematically. Like all charms, it will lose its Magic when it becomes a Method.

  Beware the shell-less snail.

  There is not a fence that will keep out the porcupine; to try is folly. One must pay one’s taxes, sometimes.

  Wilkinson’s Phosphate is a false promise that presses a tree into an untimely maturity. Similarly, Powell’s Ash is a fraud. Contrary to the claims on the label, Pliny’s Bisphosphate was not developed by the Pliny of the Natural History, but Pliny Norton, of Worcester, who is deliberately opaque concerning this distinction.

  On the topic of fertilizer, here I will admit a brief confession. Some dozen years ago, I became aware that a Mr. Fludd, of Bettsbridge, was slandering me in the marketplace, repeating the tired accusations of Lunacy. Of course, I knew the cause of his campaign was envy. Many years before, Fludd, having been convinced that he might find his wealth in farming, had tricked a group of Indians into giving up a sizeable property with the promises of future payments. When, as one might have expected, such monies never materialized, and the Indians lodged an objection with the Great and General Court, Fludd circulated a rumour that the men were harassing his daughter, had stolen from the garrison stores, and so forth, the effect being that the ire of a local militia was raised, and the Indians, by then living in meagre circumstances, were met one night by an angry mob that killed one as an example and chased the rest, first to the small mission at Corbury Junction and then onwards. His territory secured, Fludd set about establishing one of the largest farms in the district, and while the land yielded, it did so poorly—pest took his corn, his cows got green-tit, and one of his farmhands died from a poisoned potato. Still, the sheer vastness of the estate more than compensated, and yet old Fludd was not to be satisfied, having staked his pride on the cultivation of apples. By then the Osgood Wonder had established itself as the nonpareil of the district, and one day Fludd approached me with an offer to buy cuttings from my tree. I refused, and told him that my fruit would have nothing to do with his bloody business. He skulked away, and I had thought the matter finished when one morning I was in the garden and I noticed some severed branches and immediately understood that I’d been robbed.

  Now, I was not worried by competition. By then, the Wonder had proved itself utterly incapable of transplantation—whatever magical connection held it to this soil meant that elsewhere it was but a common, unremarkable fruit. Nevertheless, the theft rankled, and when I confided in Rumbold, he was equally outraged. Together we hatched a plan of revenge, most perfect, but requiring us to wait three years to implement, until the stolen Wonders fruited over at Fludd farm. Then, once the old thief had realized, to his fury, that the much-anticipated tree was but a mealy codling on his cursed soil, I sent Rumbold to his parts, where he befriended Fludd’s gardener, drank with him, and one night, in a state of pretended inebriation, whispered the formula of the “great fertilizer” that was the secret of my success.

  “Truly?” asked the gardener.

  “And sometimes he has me participating,” said my faithful batman.

  Which is why, to this day, if you are passing the Fludd property on a morning, and you look into his apple orchard, you will see the diligent farmer, his wife, their three daughters, and their grandchildren, all squatting red-faced and bare-bottomed at the base of the accursed apple tree, thinking this will be the s—t that brings them fame at last.

  On Bachelorhood

  At times, a question has been raised about my bachelorhood. Would it not be easier, I have been asked, to take a wife?

  A casual answer may be found in that I was twice married, loved my two wives dearly, and mourned deeply upon their passing. Often I am stirred by the memories of Julia’s sweet lips and Hannah’s figure, and wish that we might have grown old together, and compared our worries and our aches.

  To mourn a lost friend, however, is not the same as wishing for another. Pomona is my mistress. Too often I have sensed, in the hungry gaze of the Albany widow or the lonely farmer’s wife, a plan to tame me. But how can she who has not had her breast pierced by a bayonet sweetened with an autumn pippin understand my passion?

  This said, I would be remiss not to share several observations on bachelorhood and the temptations of marriage.

  Indeed, the young man in search of a bride, would be well advised to consider apple cultivation. Open any of our chivalric narratives, and you will conclude that it is the knight that is most desired by the female of the species. Well, I have been a soldier, and I am well familiar with the shy eyes that gaze out at a passing regiment from gently parted curtains, but can assert that there is nothing like the sight of an apple to ignite the female imagination. Is it an accident that our artists chose none other than Malus domestica to depict the forbidden fruit which tempted Eve? Was not Eve herself in fact a cutting, taken from Adam’s rib?

  Still, I was an old man of fifty when I came to this place, and no great beauty. Time had creased my brow, garlanded my chin with several companions, and furred both ear and nostril generously against the cold. And yet, I had been here but one season, when the maid of V——, my neighbour, having tasted of the fruit, offered to help me with its harvest, tried to tickle me in the orchard, and asked, more than once, if she might climb the ladder while I secured it, an offer which I turned down, well suspecting what sight she had in store should I look up.

  No matter the temptation, I have always put my garden first. Have I dallied? Perhaps, but I will not stoop to tell of it. I know the rumours as to how I obtained cuttings of the Striped Pearmain of Mrs. Kirkpatrick, who guarded her husband’s prize-winning trees after his death. Of this, I will venture no comment that might besmirch the reputation of that good lady; the enchantments of the grove should in the grove remain.

  On the Raising of Daughters; and the Judgement of Paris, and How It Might Have Ended Differently

  Busy we were in our industry, Mary fierce in her vigilance against marauders, Alice gently laying out the fruit so that it would not be bruised. But many were the quiet hours of midwinter when there was little to do but sing or talk. Mary and Alice (say it quickly, Malus!) never tired of hearing how the hedgehog carries apples on his quills, or the pelican mulls hers in her pouch to make a cider for her young. And how many times I told them of the legend of Hera’s gardens, planted with golden apples, gifts from the goddess Gaia on her wedding day, guarded by the Hesperides and a hundred-headed dragon at the garden’s gates! It was a great marvel for them to hear how Heracles was sent there in his Labors, to steal three apples, something our fawns accomplish every day.

  But their favorite story was that of the Judgement of Paris, for which I had woven a delightful version, which I recommend to anyone who loves a fruity myth.

  A banquet was held in celebration of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. All the gods and goddesses were invited save Eris, Goddess of Discord, who, jealous of having been excluded from the festivities, swept down from the heavens and tossed upon the table an apple on which was written Tei Kallistei, “For the Fairest.” Of course, Hera and Athena and Aphrodite each argued for the honour, until Zeus, weary of such bickering, ordered Hermes to yoke them together and carry them to Mount Ida to be judged by the shepherd Paris.

  And Hermes did, and, pushing forward the bickering women, handed over the apple and whispered into Paris’s ear that he must choose.

  And how I would look back and forth between my daughters—as little ones of seven, young girls of ten, and budding maids of twelve—and hold the Wonder out before them, equidistant (for a father must not play favorites), and cry “Tei kallistei!” And each in turn would reach for it, shouting, “I! I! The fairest! It is I!” But each time I would pull it back, as Paris must have done, as the goddesses jostled and elbowed and made their famous offers: glory, empire, the hand of the most beautiful woman in the world.

  “Which did he choose?” I would ask them, as I ask you, my reader: which—kleos, tyrannos, eros—would you?

  “Helen!” my daughters would cry, for they knew the story, knew the abduction and the war that would follow. But always with laughter in their eyes.

  For they knew, this time, the tale was different.

  “Wrong,” I would say, and, palming the Wonder, I would take a bite. “In this version, Paris chooses the apple.”

  On Riddling

  Another great past-time of mine was the writing of riddles, and I am told that some of these have gone on to become famous in our district. As one cannot trust literary posterity to children, I here include my favorites.

  Green of girth

  And hair but one

  Brown in frost and red in sun

  (The answer: an apple!)

  Fat red man

  Hanging by one hand

  Sways in the wind that blows down on the land

  (Also an apple.)

  Eye but no head

  Skin but no hands

  Flesh but no bones

  Children she has none

  Until she’s dead and gone

  (This was less popular among the wee ones, but remains a personal favorite. The answer, also, is “apple.”)

  Finally, these two call on the passage of time.

  White at dawn

  Green at noon

  Red at vespers

  Brown in death

  and

  Sniff her in April

  Bite her in September

  Come Father Frost

  And we will

  Sip her in December

  Apple and apple! Anne and Rumbold feel the last one should be reserved for those of a riper age.

  Some Apple Lore and New Interpretations

  The Greeks were not the only ones to give the apple mythical status. It was a tradition in the old country for young men, on Twelfth Night, to go into the orchards with bowls of wassail, and pour the cider mixture over the tree roots in hope of a good crop.

  Now, I had long been skeptical of this practice, for was not my Wonder proof that no such rite was needed? Alone she had grown and fruited, with no reveller to douse her skirts. And yet I can recall the day I came upon my tree, and the cider-y odor of those rotting apples that fizzed beneath my feet. Was this not a wassailing? Might not the apple wassail its neighbour? Might not our rites be but those copied out of Nature? What kind of offering have you left, friend? Might we all not learn to wassail, in spirit, if not with fruit, then with words or deeds?

  This no doubt ancient practice has been said by some authorities to be related to an older myth of the so-called Apple Tree Man, that spirit said to reside in the oldest tree in the orchard, guardian of her fertility and of the health and well-being of its inhabitants generally. And while I do not believe the legend of the Man who leads the wassailer to a golden treasure (for what use is gold to an orchardist when he has his trees?), I have come to the opinion, generally, that he who does good to the land shall be protected, while he who trespasses upon her will be met with most violent return.

  Concerning My Decision to Go to War (or, a Lamentation on the Brevity of the Life of Man Compared to That of His Trees)

  Dawn approaches. Though the sky is dark, I can sense about the house, the stirrings of morning. Looking back upon these notes, I see that what has gone unmentioned are those very events that necessitated this writing. War has come! And once I had thought I had finished with her entirely! But if one finds no mention of Politics in these pages, no Acts, no Dates and Declarations, it is because this is a History of Trees, not Men. That is, it was. But now the pitch has risen so that even deep within my woods I hear it. In the market, the calls of apple-mongers have been drowned out by the dueling tirades. Militias practice, and though the war is far away, man seems to will the fight upon these peaceful hills. When asked to take a side, I claim allegiance to my Wonder. But whereas once they chuckled at an old man in his dotage, now they demand to know my loyalties. What can I answer? My very blood is suspect. Even if I were to pretend to Rebel sympathies, there are too many who know the deep English roots of Osgood stock.

  Thus, when my brother came thundering up the road with Orders promising me my old Battalion, I turned back towards my orchard that I might ask for her advice.