Many, many are the hours I've enjoyed climbing apple trees, pruning their orange brown limbs, picking their fruit, appreciating the strength of their branches, and admiring their wondrous mix of beauty and tenacity for life. While pruning in the early spring, I nibble the sweetish bark off small pruned twigs in such quantities that I occasionally forget about being hungry for lunch.

I'm not at all surprised that my favourite bark is considered a tonic. It is also said to promote free perspiration (keeps me warm on chilly days), to help break fevers, and to be a diuretic and a laxative.

Apple bark has also been found useful for gravel in the bladder, for dysentery, suppressed menstruation, nausea, insect stings, mad dog bites, toothache and more.

Pectin, found abundantly in crab apples, is used popularly to set fruit in jams and jellies. It is probably the pectin that helps in cases of diarrhea, as in these two recipes: 1. Pulp the fruit scald with hot (not boiling) water, take in 1/2 cup doses 3 times daily, lightly sweetened with honey. 2. Steep summer apple parings in boiled milk and drink 1/2 cupful warm every hour until relieved.

The crab apple is also considered to be a tonic and cleansing to the system and to be anti-scabies. Its strained sweetened juice makes a fine jelly on tag own.

A French doctor found that the bacillus of typhoid fever cannot live long in apple juice, and therefore recommends that doubtful drinking water be mixed with cider.

People who smoke their meats and fish recommend apple wood as a smoke wood. Commonly, one inch branches are chipped and the pieces and powder are placed on the coals so their aroma adds its flavour to the food.

The Seneca and Meskwaki people have even found medicinal uses for the root bark of the wild apple tree. These were as remedies for tuberculosis, malaria and smallpox and as a tonic.