344 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the table should never be without. Cheaper and far healthier than the 

 many things that too often crowd it out, let it come at the end of the 

 meal, if custom or fashion will have it so, for it is infinitely better then 

 than not at all. It is curious, but true, that the table of the day laborer 

 in town, who does not own a foot of land and who, the country man con- 

 temptuously declares, "lives from hand to mouth," is more bountifully 

 supplied with vegetables and fruits than that of the farmer in the midst 

 of his broad acres. The latter gives a variety of excuses for his neglect; 

 and while visiting at a neighbor's, one day, with his mouth full of his sec- 

 ond help of delicious green peas, will declare a garden "don't pay" — and, 

 as he backs up his plate for another quarter section of strawberry short- 

 cake, will wonder how his host can find time to "putter with small fruits,' 

 regardless of, or indifferent to, the fact that no acre on his farm will yield 

 him so much of good living, and do so much to promote his health and 

 happiness, as a quarter acre garden spot intelligently tended. 



Even so small an area has infinite possibilities to be developed into rich 

 reward when we are, as the politician says, "educated up" to the right 

 standard which leads us to seek less to hoard money for a possible "rainy 

 day" than to enjoy life's privileges and pleasures every day. 



Undoubtedly the garden or fruit patch for the busy farmer, with both 

 eyes fixed upon the bald-headed bird of liberty as represented on our sil- 

 ver dollar, who counts that day lost which does not advance his worldly 

 interests, is what may more properly be called the "truck patch," where 

 horse and cultivator give the culture and where the scriptural injunction, 

 to let the tares grow with the wheat until the harvest, is literally obeyed; 

 but this is better than no gardeh at all. 



There is a moral side to this question. Man in general dislikes work, 

 and his greatest effort is toward means to avoid it. Anything which 

 tempts us to labor is therefore of value. More than half of the labor of 

 the world is expended to i^lease the eye. The back-woodsman must have 

 his ax painted red, and the needles of the half-starved seamstress must be 

 wrapped in gilded paper, and I speak in reverence in saying that more 

 than half the work of the Creator is the giving his objects beauty of form 

 and color. God loves beauty and so should we. He has given us capacity 

 for enjoying beautiful objects, and it is our duty to develop and minister 

 to that capacity ; and anything that tends to make us healthy and interest- 

 ing to our friends should be made of special study. Surely there is 

 nothing more healthgiving than growing, caring for, and eating plentifully 

 of good, fresh ripe fruit. 



The term fruit, in its proper signification, includes the fruits of the 

 endogenous as well as the exogenous plants; but it is of the latter that I 

 make reference specially, with some general statements common to all. 



While some fruits are of the highest value as articles of food, others are 

 regarded as articles of luxury. The bountiful supply of succulent fruits 

 in tropical climates is a bountiful natural provision for the supply of real 

 wants, contributing much to the health and comfort of the inhabitants. 

 The coolness of the succulent fruits (as well as the cooling properties of 

 their acids) renders them peculiarly grateful during the hot season, their 

 temperature being, when freshly gathered, considerably below that of the 

 surrounding atmosphere; but besides their cooling qualities, the fruits are 

 a food to man and beast and possess also certain medicinal and other pecu- 

 liar qualities extremely beneficial to man. However, the albuminous mat- 

 ters are present in fruits in so small quantities that their use as tissue- 



