STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 75 



NEW FRUITS. 

 BY A. L. HAY, JACKSONVILLE. 



" There is divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we 

 raa}'." "Or, in the language of one who got his punctuation a little 

 mixed: " There is a divinity that shapes our ends rough, hew them 

 as we may." 



Certainly, there was a president, secretary, or a somebody who 

 shaped the upper (or title end) of this, what ought to be a report on 

 new fruits, to be read before this Societ}-, and left the herculean task 

 of adding the bottom and sides to one who knows as little about new 

 fruits as Horace Greeley knew about theology, or as Henry Ward 

 Beecher knew about farming. 



Upon receiving notice from your Secretary, that I would be ex- 

 pected to make a report upon the above subject at this time, my 

 thoughts at once reverted (I believe that is the Latin phrase for turn- 

 ing back) some three thousand years to the time of King Solomon, 

 who is supposed to have had more wisdom and more experience in 

 managing a family and paying millinery bills than any other man who 

 had lived up to the time of our own illustrious and lamented Brigham 

 Young, and after giving his heart to seek and search out by wisdom 

 concerning* all things that are done under heaven, he was led to ex- 

 claim: "There is no new thing under the sun," and added, "Is 

 there anything whereof it may be said: See, this is new, it hath 

 been already of old time which was before us." 



Now, taking Solomon's view of this subject, and certainly his 

 conclusions are worthy of consideration, may we not be justified in 

 the belief that at that very early period in the world's history, this 

 noted ancient monarch had barrels of Wythe, Pewaukee and 

 Wealthy apples stored in his refrigerator, or that his gardens were 

 profusely supplied with the Wild-Goose Crab or Russian Mulberry 

 Plum; or who can doubt that barrel after barrel of Russian crab 

 cider or Niagara grape wine lined his cellar from the beginning of 

 his reign until the ending thereof, or that much of his time was 

 devoted to the study of his Maiden's Blush or his Ladies' Favorite 

 apples, while in his vineyards and orchards might have been found, in 

 luxuriant bearing, our newest and choicest varieties of grapes, 

 peaches, plums, etc., without end. But if we were to strictly adopt 

 this Solomonic view of things, I fear that we should make no perma- 

 nent progress in horticulture, for all investigations and experiments 

 would cease and everybody would be content to eat sour grapes and 

 other inferior fruits and depend upon plowing up new varieties, or 

 to have them showered upon us by a Divine Providence, just as we 

 are provided with rain and snow. Therefore, whatever may have been 

 Solomon's experience in horticulture, although he spent millions iu 



