FRUITS AND FLOWERS. 277 



ing better understood and appreciated, and we have correspond- 

 ing hope for the future. But that this knowledge is not shared 

 by the whole community every day's observation compels us 

 to believe. 



When we see a fruit tree, of any variety, that has been set 

 from one to five or ten years, having in that time made but a 

 comparatively trifling growth of wood, surrounded by a tough 

 sward, or what is perhaps quite as common, and fully as detri- 

 mental, a thrifty, rank growth of a circle of weeds and suckers, 

 abstracting from the soil all those nutritive elements that should 

 have been appropriated l)y the tree itself, which latter receives 

 no accession of wood from year to year, but becomes covered 

 with moss, and bears all the marks of premature old age, we 

 are forced to the conclusion that the owner is either ignorant 

 or grossly negligent. That he is either quite unaware of the 

 mode in which the tree obtains its limited supply of nourish- 

 ment from the soil, or that he is entirely careless of its cultiva- 

 tion, because its crop is not a marketable one. He, does not 

 appreciate tlie fact that the thrifty growth of a fruit tree is 

 worth infinitely more for a few years than its meagre crop of 

 imperfect fruit. The difficulty is with him as with some corpora- 

 tions which have closed their construction account prematurely, 

 and are consequently obliged to pay their first dividends in 

 stock: he closes his construction account the moment the tree 

 is planted, and expects his dividends without further effort, 

 whereas this account should certainly not be closed until the 

 tree pays full dividends of fruit, for the small amount of labor 

 and attention annually required will be most abundantly repaid 

 in the increased quantity and improved quality of the product. 

 ' We might estimate in merely an approximate way the value 

 of the annual growth of a tree somewhat as follows : — 



• • . tJpU oO 



10 



20 

 . • . 30 



45 

 60 

 80 

 1 10 



