Essays · Chapter
How the Wild Apple Grows explained
Thoreau describes the tenacious growth of wild apple trees in New England pastures, emphasizing their struggle against browsing cattle, drought, and rocky soil.
What happens
Thoreau describes the tenacious growth of wild apple trees in New England pastures, emphasizing their struggle against browsing cattle, drought, and rocky soil. He traces their development from low, thorny shrubs to fruitful trees, drawing a parallel between the wild apple's resilience and the perseverance of poets, philosophers, and statesmen. The chapter celebrates the wild fruit's superior flavor born of hardship and reflects on nature's capacity to produce unexpected excellence.
Themes in this chapter
Nature and Simplicity
Thoreau celebrates the wild apple's natural growth in pastures and woods, valuing its untamed character over cultivated varieties.
Heroism and Moral Courage
The wild apple's persistent struggle against adversity is framed as a heroic model for human genius and moral fortitude.
Critique of Materialism and Business
Thoreau contrasts the wild apple's intrinsic worth with commercial fruit breeding, suggesting that true value arises from hardship, not artificial selection.
Characters to notice
- Henry David Thoreau
Observer and narrator who tracks the growth of wild apple trees, drawing moral and philosophical lessons from their struggle.
Key passages
“Thus cut down annually, it does not despair; but, putting forth two short twigs for every one cut off, it spreads out low along the ground in the hollows or between the rocks, growing more stout and scrubby, until it forms, not a tree as yet, but a little pyramidal, stiff, twiggy mass, almost as solid and impenetrable as a rock.”
Year after year the tree is browsed, yet it responds by growing two branches for each one lost, becoming a dense, low thicket that is as tough as stone.
Thoreau illustrates the apple tree's resilience through repeated pruning by cattle.
“So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate; and only the most persistent and strongest genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth.”
Like the wild apple, people are shaped by hardship, and only the most determined individuals rise above adversity to produce something of lasting value.
Thoreau draws a direct analogy between the tree's struggle and human achievement.