114 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The unstinted amount of fruit which a fruitgrower is able to supply 

 his table, fresh from the tree and vine, is a consideration that should not 

 be overlooked. Such a healthful luxury can only be enjoyed on the farm, 

 in perfection, as it need not be gathered before it is in its best state for 

 eating. 



It is not the purpose of this" paper to influence men without experience 

 to change their vocations to engage in the business of fruitgrowing for 

 a livelihood, but to make those who are comfortably situated on fruit 

 farms satisfied to stay. Jt requires a knowledge of the business to make 

 it profitable, but, if one does not wish to make it a dependence, experience 

 is not so important. But, whether the fruit farm is made a home for 

 pleasure or profit, it can hardly fail to make satisfactory returns to people 

 who enjoy rural life. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Comings : I think the best way would be to fall in with the current 

 of the paper, and extend it a little. Man was placed, we are told, in a 

 garden, close to nature. I do not believe many here realize how absolutely 

 necessary it is for man to have contact with nature in some way, with 

 land or water or some feature of nature, to be a properly developed, 

 well-balanced man ; and in this country we have today to face conditions 

 which are very undemocratic and very unhealthy from the fact that a 

 large number of our people have become what is called " factory slaves ", 

 people whose whole life is spent away from nature, having no contact 

 with the gardens, fruits, vines, or flowers; and that is unhealthy, abnor- 

 mal, and wicked, and will always produce a slavish character and devel- 

 opment, and so a large proportion of our people have drifted into this 

 condition of life that it is a serious question for the future of our repub- 

 lican institutions. I knew a striking case, a few years ago (I have known 

 others similar), where a man began working in a factory at |1.50 per day. 

 Later he received |2, and then he was put on piece-work. He worked in 

 one factor}^ twenty years, and when he left that factory he had saved 

 more than his twenty years' wages, and this is how : He had gone outside 

 of the town and bought a lot, beautified it, had a garden and fruits, a 

 horse and cow and chickens, and he had brought up his family there. He 

 worked four to six hours per day. When he had made |2 he went home 

 and worked on his little garden, and in the twenty years he had developed 

 four such homes and sold them at a profit. So he had made his living 

 and supported his family; his boys had been brought up gardeners and 

 had become good citizens, whereas, if he had rented a home, his boys 

 would probably have grown up rough and perhaps worthless, and cer- 

 tainly would never have been worth as much as citizens. That is my 

 idea of our civilization. A man should have his own leisure time, and his 

 work should be in the garden, where God planted man. These leisure 

 hours should, a part of them at least, be devoted to some pursuit which 

 would bring him nearer nature. I believe that is the only way a correct 

 civilization can be developed. Tliat perhaps is a radical idea. 



Mr. Morrill: I am glad Mr. Comings adds that idea to the paper, 

 because it is practicable and perhaps at the same time idealistic. 



