The Apple Situation in the United States. 99 



causes that led up to changes in the older countries of the world are 

 operating here now and will prohably continue for ages to come. 

 There, comparatively few own their own homes, while here the tend- 

 ency is in the same direction. Young men now are not, as a rule, 

 seeking lands and homes, but are seeking salaried positions and are 

 rapidly drifting away from such a line of work and occupation as will 

 fit them to take the initiative; but are not only willing but anxious to 

 leave the soil and its management to others, while they go into the 

 centers of population and engage in so-called business, and in case of 

 failure in that line, they engage in some kind of labor, for pay, rather 

 seeking present wages, even if low, rather than to engage in some pro- 

 ductive work on their own account, where each can secure — not the 

 average wage, but the result of his own exertions. In other words, 

 so many people are now willing to accept the rewards of mediocre 

 ability, that it is easy to predict that the few who do direct their 

 energies along the lines indicated, will be rewarded away above the 

 average, while the majority will tend downward, until in the not dis- 

 tant future, we may expect classes; not, of course, as in Eupore, based 

 on birth or position or descendency from, so-called noble ancestry, but 

 the other kind of class distinction, based on wealth. When those days 

 shall come, the successful horticulturist or farmer will be regarded as 

 the rich of the old world today are regarded. This may not be a 

 desirable condition, especially for the great masses of the future, but 

 who doubts but that this country is coming, surely, if but slowly, to 

 that condition. If, in the future, our aristocrats are not worse than we 

 may expect from successes gained in horticulture, well will it be for our 

 country. In fact, the successes, financially speaking, of the producers 

 will retard the evil tendencies that seem to be coming, so, if we cannot 

 induce people to own homes of their own, we may induce them to make 

 their homes more desirable, and, by furnishing them with the best of 

 fruits enable them to better satisfy the appetite and be the better satis- 

 fied with their condition. So it is the mission of the horticulturist, one 

 branch of the business being represented by the apple grower, to make 

 home more beautiful and to enoble our people by educating the 

 aesthetic side of our natures and bringing them closer to nature and to 

 nature's God. 



