SOMETHING ABOUT THE FRUIT CONVENTIONS. 



intercourse, societies, associations, and communities, are based upon a spirit of 

 compromise ; that is, every man gives up something of his own pride and selfish- 

 ness, in order that the general good may be the gainer by it. 



I " dig'''' into this subject a little, because I see the absence of this spirit of com- 

 promise appears to have retarded a little the onward march of the fruit growing 

 interest in the convention. I say appears, for I don't know that this is really the 

 fact ; for I am told that the conventions, both at Buffalo and New York, were 

 both successful and useful things ; but some of the journals, and especially the 

 agricultural papers, have fussed and fumbled over the meeting of these conven- 

 tions, each giving a local coloring to the matter, till they have almost made it 

 appear that harmony is impossible, when, in fact, there is not the least cause for 

 discord. 



According to the papers, Western fruit growers can't meet with Eastern fruit 

 growers, and Eastern knowledge and experience are worth nothing in the West. 

 Softly, my friend. This may be all very well for editors, who wish to rally local 

 parties and patronage round their own presses, but it is a hlight-icind to your 

 interests, depend upon it. Exactly what you want in convention, is to bring all 

 sorts of different experiences together — the Boston man, who coaxes his half dozen 

 Bartletts in his back yard with guano, till he makes prize specimens, and the Ohio 

 man, who gathers his apples from orchards that cover half a township, and thinks 

 he is a scientific cultivator. It is exactly by getting all these growers together 

 in convention, and comparing notes, and sifting opinions, that you are to get at 

 the real kernel of the matter ; for there is a kernel to every nut as well as a husk. 

 Those who sit down amicably and crack the nut, are very likely to get at the ker- 

 nel; those who wrangle and quarrel, are very likely to ge'i only the husk. 



Local patriotism is a good thing. I might call it the foundation stone of the 

 national edifice ; for it don't need any argument to prove that if a man don't love 

 his own family, neighborhood, and State, he won't love anything rightly. But an 

 edifice is not all foundation ; and unless the stones at the bottom of the wall are 

 contented that there should also be stones at the top, it is easy to see there can 

 be no regular house. I have been a little amused with this bubbling-up of local 

 patriotism in various articles in your journal, intended to be merely descriptive of 

 the productions, and the fertility of certain sections of our common country. A 

 writer in Vermont is certain that no part of America can beat the shores of Lake 

 Champlain for apples ; another, in Illinois, is equally sure there is no part of the 

 Union equal to his for the same fruit. One pomologist, at Buffalo, feels confident 

 that, all things considered, Buffalo is about the best soil and climate in the Union 

 for all kinds of fruit; while you, in the valley of the Hudson, claim to raise the 

 best of everything, from Denniston's famous Albany plums to Pell's still more 

 famous Newtown Pippins, 



Very little hurt will come out of this pleasantry in the right place. It is only 

 chuckling a little over the good things Providence has sent us. But we must not 

 grow too serious about it, and declare that we of the West can beat the East in 

 orchards, and don't care to be dependent on her ; or we of the East have got all 

 the science, and can teach all the rest of the nation. There is something to learn 

 all round ; and if we have learned all that is to be learned at home, and in our 

 own heaven-blest neighborhood. State, or county, why then there is a great deal 

 more to be learned by watching sharply what cultivation and cultivators have 

 done all over the country. But this kind of learning can only be got at by a little 

 forbearance and courtesy towards others, and not talking too large about our own 

 breed of cattle. 



some of the noisiest of this species of tin-trumpet orators have prob 



