TUE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 23 



argument in favour of the preparation of fruit for the table being 

 undertaken by tlie gardener, unless there is a valid reason for some 

 one else to do it. Now, in many houses the ladies superintend this 

 part of the menu, and all that good taste can demand is at the service 

 of the guests in respect of the fruits and flowers that adorn the table. 

 Ladies who have the leisure, and who take an interest in such matters, 

 can bestow more time in grouping and ari*anging fruit ; and the 

 most tasteful of gardeners may gladly surrender into these abler 

 hands a task which is attended with difficulty fully equal to the 

 honour that accompanies success. But if none above the rank of 

 servant take this business in hand, the gardener is the only person 

 who should touch the fruit from the moment of its being gathered 

 until it is finally set before those who are to eat it in all its proper 

 freshness and beauty, and with such accompaniments, in the way of 

 leaves and flowers, as taste may dictate. 



If this much be true in the first consideration of the subject, it 

 follows that gardeners should study how to prepare fruits for the 

 dessert. We fear that there are not many, even amongst the most 

 expert producers of fruit, who could arrange their productions 

 artistically, so as to show the real beauty of the fruit at its best, and 

 with such surroundings as should evince the employment of good 

 taste and appropriate industry. It' we may judge by the usual 

 appearance of fruits at exhibitions, the practices of cultivators in pre- 

 senting them are of a very rough-and-ready character ; for, in truth, 

 it is but seldom we see fruits displayed as they should or might be. 

 Nor is it at all surprising that men who have given their minds to the 

 serious study of their business, and habituated themselves to large 

 and general views of things, should be occasionally perplexed about 

 such minor matters, and perhaps give way to the thought that putting 

 fruits into dishes and baskets is a sort of child's play. From one 

 point of view, perhaps this is a very trifling matter. To grow 

 good fruit is the grand thing, and to dish it, or even to eat it, is quite 

 a secondary thing. But even trifles may properly engage our atten- 

 tion at times, and for a man who has laboured anxiously for months 

 to provide his employer with a dish of fine grapes, peaches, or straw- 

 berries, it is by no means a derogation to see that his employer 

 obtains them in their proper quantity, and in the ^ame condition of 

 bloom and freshness as they would have if the gardener placed them 

 on his own table. In different households different rules prevail, 

 and no prescription in respect of serving vi:inds can be of universal 

 application. But there are many cases where the rule as to the placing 

 of fruit on the table might be revised, to t!ie advantage of all who 

 eat it, and perhaps to the advantage also of the gardneer's reputa- 

 tion. The two grand reqviirements of whatever rule prevails is that 

 there shall be no abstractions and no spoilings. G-ood fruit will not 

 bear rough usage, and sooner than it should pass through half a 

 dozen hands, and make the grand tour of all the domestic offices, 

 being half roasted in one place, and well steamed in another, and a 

 little sorted sometimes to remove the best, we should prefer to see 

 it transferred in 1ruck baskets, punnets, or willow pattern plates, 

 direct from the hands of the gardener to the hands of the host. But 



January. 



