Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss (portable ebook reader .txt) 📕

Next morning the boys and I started with the cart laden with our

bundles of bamboos to attend to the avenue of fruit trees. The buffalo

we left behind, for his services were not needed, and I wished the

wound in his nostrils to become completely cicatrized before I again

put him to work.

We were not a moment too soon; many of the young trees which before

threatened to fall had now fulfilled their promise, and were lying

prostrate on the ground, others were bent, some few only remained

erect. We raised the trees, and digging deeply at their roots, drove in

stout bamboo props, to which we lashed them firmly with strong broad

fibres.

`Papa,’ said Franz, as we were thus engaged, and he handed me the

fibres as I required them, `are these wild or tame trees?’

`Oh, these are wild trees, most ferocious trees,’ laughed Jack, `and we

are tying them up lest they should run away, and in a little while we

will untie them and they will trot about after us and give us fruit

wherever we go. Oh, we will tame them; they shall have a ring through

their noses like the buffalo!’

`That’s not true,’ replied Franz, gravely, `but there are wild and tame

trees, the wild ones grow out in the woods like the crab-apples, and

the tame ones in the garden like the pears and peaches at home. Which

are these, papa?’

`They are not wild,’ I replied, `but grafted or cultivated or, as you

call them, tame trees. No European tree bears good fruit until it is

grafted!’ I saw a puzzled look come over the little boy’s face as he

heard this new word, and I hastened to explain it.

`Grafting,’ I continued, `is the process of inserting a slip or twig of

a tree into what is called an eye; that is, a knot or hole in the

branch of another. This twig or slip then grows and produces, not such

fruit as the original stock would have borne, but such as the tree from

which it was taken would have produced. Thus, if we have a sour crab

tree, and an apple tree bearing fine ribston pippins, we would take a

slip of the latter, insert it in an eye of the former, and in a year or

two the branch which it would then grow would be laden with good

apples.’

`But,’ asked Ernest, `where did the slips of good fruit come from, if

none grow without grafting?’

`From foreign countries,’ I replied. `It is only in the cold climate of

our part of the world that they require this grafting; in many parts of

the world, in more southern latitudes than ours, the most luscious

fruit trees are indigenous to the soil, and flourish and bear sweet,

wholesome fruit, without the slightest care of attention being bestowed

upon them; while in England and Germany, and even in France, these same

trees require the utmost exertion of horticultural skills to make them

bring forth any fruit whatever.

`Thus, when the Romans invaded England they found nothing in the way of

fruit trees but the crab-apple, nut bushes, and bramble bushes, but by

grafting on these, fine apples, filberts, and raspberries were

produced, and it was the same in our own dear Switzerland—all our

fruit trees were imported.’

`Were cherries, father? May we not even call cherries Swiss? I always

thought they grew nowhere else.’

`I am afraid we cannot even claim cherries as our own, not even the

name of them; they are called cherries from Cerasus, a state of Pontus,

in Asia, whence they were brought to Europe by Lucullus, a Roman

general, about seventy years before Christ.

`Hazelnuts also come from Pontus; walnuts, again, came originally from

Persia. As for grapes, they are of the greatest antiquity. We hear, if

you remember, of Noah cultivating vines, and they have been brought

from one place to another until they now are to be found in most parts

of the civilized world.’

`Do you think all these trees will grow?’ asked Fritz, as we crossed

Jackal River and entered our plantation at Tentholm. `Here are lemons,

pomegranates, pistachio nuts, and mulberries.’

`I have little doubt of it,’ I replied, `we are evidently within the

tropics, where such trees as these are sure to flourish.

`These pines, now, come from France, Spain, and Italy; the olives from

Armenia and Palestine; the figs originally from the island of Chios;

the preaches and apricots from Persia; plums from Damascus in Syria,

and the pears of all sorts from Greece.

`However, if our countries have not been blessed in the same way with

fruit, we have been given wisdom and skill, which has enabled us to

import and cultivate the trees of other lands.’

We thus talked and worked until every tree that required the treatment

was provided with a stout bamboo prop, and then, with appetites which a

gourmand might well have envied, we returned to Falconhurst.

I think my good wife was almost alarmed at the way we fell upon the

corned beef and palm-cabbage she set before us, but at length these

good things produced the desired effect, and one after another declared

himself satisfied. As we sat reclining after our labour and digesting

our dinner we discussed the various projects we had in contemplation.

`I wish,’ said my wife, `that you would invent some other plan for

climbing to the nest above us; I think that the nest itself is perfect,

I really wish for nothing better, but I should like to be able to get

to it without scaling that dreadful ladder every time; could you not

make a flight of steps to reach it?’

I carefully thought over the project, and turned over every plan for

its accomplishment.

`It would be impossible, I am afraid,’ said I, `to make stairs

outside, but within the trunk it might be done. More than once have I

thought that this trunk might be hollow or partly so, and if such be

the case our task would be comparatively easy. Did you not tell me the

other day that you noticed bees coming from a hole in the tree?’

`Oh, yes,’ said little Franz, `and I went to look at them and one flew

right against my face and