Sometimes the crop is so great that the
trees fairly bend over with the weight of the fruit, and there is an old
English saying: 'The more apples the tree bears, the more she bows to
the folk.'"
"How funny!" laughed Edith. "Does the apple tree move its head, Miss
Harson?"
"It cannot go quite so far as that," was the reply; "it just stays bent
over like a person carrying a heavy burden. The branches of overladen
fruit trees are sometimes propped up with long poles to keep them from
breaking. There is another strange custom, which used to be practiced on
New Year's eve. It was called 'Apple-Howling,' and a troop of boys
visited the different orchards--which would scarcely have been desirable
when the apples were ripe--and, forming a ring around the trees,
repeated these words:
"'Stand fast, root! bear well, top!
Pray God send us a good howling crop--
Every twig, apples big;
Every bough, apples enow.'
"All then shouted in chorus, while one of the party played on a cow's
horn, and the trees were well rapped with the sticks which they carried.
This ceremony is thought to have been a relic of some heathen sacrifice,
and it is quite absurd enough to be that."
"What is 'a howling crop,' Miss Harson?" asked Clara. "That name sounds
so queer!"
"I don't know what it can be," replied her governess, "unless it refers
to the strange expression sometimes used, 'howling with delight.' We
hear more commonly of 'howling with pain,' but 'a howling crop' must be
one that makes the owner scream, as well as dance for joy.
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