Also what was called "apple-howling" used to be practised in various
counties of England on New-Year's eve. A troop of boys visited the
different orchards, and, encircling the apple-trees, repeated the
following words:--

"Stand fast, root! bear well, top!
Pray God sent! us a good howling crop:
Every twig, apples big;
Every bough, apples enow!"

"They then shout in chorus, one of the boys accompanying them on a cow's
horn. During this ceremony they rap the trees with their sticks." This
is called "wassailing" the trees, and is thought by some to be "a relic
of the heathen sacrifice to Pomona."

Herrick sings,--

"Wassaile the trees that they may beare
You many a plum and many a peare;
For more or less fruits they will bring
As you so give them wassailing."

Our poets have as yet a better right to sing of cider than of wine; but
it behooves them to sing better than English Phillips did, else they
will do no credit to their Muse.


THE WILD APPLE.