MICHIGAN STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 465 



tion. The beef of the Englishman, and the rice of the Brahmin, 

 differ not more essentially from each other than do the civil- 

 izations of which the Briton and Hindoo are representative 

 specimens. The forces now at work developing and improving 

 the varieties of fruits, and making them "' familiar as household 

 words," in all the houses of our land, will have an influence on 

 our national character, which the historian of the future alone 

 can adequately measure. Anne Boleyn, the beautiful and ill- 

 starred Queen of Henry VIH., in a letter to a friend, said 

 her breakfast that morning consisted of "half a pound 

 of bacon and a quart of beer.'' Suppose on that Sep- 

 tember morning, instead of pork and beer, she had 

 seated herself to a dish of Early Crawfords, smothered in 

 cream, a cup of Souchong with a light biscuit, and had fin- 

 ished her meal with a melting Bartlett or a buttery Doyenne, 

 how different Avould have been her sensations as Avell as senti- 

 ments ! Perhaps on such a diet she might have saved that 

 beautiful and queenly neck for some better use than to flesh 

 the headsman's sword. 



The introduction into common life of delicious fruits — these 

 unbanished inhabiters of Paradise — will serve to elevate and 

 refine the daily life of the masses. I call them the unbanished 

 inhabiters of Paradise, because, though not driven out by fiery- 

 flaming sword, yet they have followed man in his exile ; and 

 wherever they are cultivated, loved, and used, our primeval 

 condition of innocent life is restored, and the very odors of 

 Eden float around the vine-clad and fruit-embowered home. 



The civilization which is to bless mankind must be addressed 

 to man in all his capacities. Like the ministry of the 

 Founder of Christianity, it will find one of its offices in 

 " breaking of bread for the body."- In the work in which you 

 are engaged, you are doing something better and nobler than 

 gratifying the appetite, for you are adding to the forces which 

 are lifting human life into a higher plane, and you ennoble as 

 well as bless. 

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