GOOD VARIETIES OF FRUIT FOR THE FARMER. 41E 
A little wholesome scolding, administered in the right spirit, bends many 
a twig in the way it should grow. Sometimes, even after the twig has at- 
tained the proportions of a mature tree, a more perfect fruit may be grafted. 
A little scolding for the mature twig may be the means of grafting a better 
fruit in time to come. 
I have said that every farmer might be a successful fruit grower to some 
extent. But I am very sorry to say that there are some who are inclined no 
farther in that direction than restriction to a few sickly hills of rhubarb, 
which product the wife, poor, starved soul, yearning for variety, will 
exchange with her equally unfortunate neighbor for the promise of a sun- 
burned pumpkin for pies later on. 
But such instances are rare and are brought about more through 
good natured shiftlessness than malicious meanness on the part of the per- 
petrator. 
A well known writer has said, “A farm without a fruit-garden may just- 
ly be regarded as a proof of a low state of civilization of the farmer. No 
country home need be without such simple means of health and happiness.” 
- It affords me the greatest of pleasure to be able at this time to say that 
circumstances have placed me in a position where I can be more charitable. 
I wouldn’t say that of any man, especially if he came to my grounds and 
bought berries by the bushel, as many of Mower county’s most enterprising 
and prosperous farmers did last season, and I am not going to say that it is 
not a very good way for them to get good varieties of fruit—they know their 
business, and I will try to attend to mine. But the great mass of farmers, 
are not conveniently located near the grounds of a person who is making. 
a specialty of growing fruit for market. 
I now come up to what appears to be the point at issue. How can the: 
farmer procure good varieties of fruit in season and out of season? 
The only correct solution to this problem is through the avenue of 
home production. In no other way can anything but a quality diminutive 
in comparison be attained. Why? Now follow me carefully. There is no 
variety of fruit—vinous or vegetable—which unless it is hermetically sealed 
the instant it is removed from the parent stem does not deteriorate in 
appearance, quality and value, according to the period of time which may 
have elapsed since such removal. 
I found a great many people Jast strawberry harvest that knew this, and 
they didn’t get their knowledge from the grower who shipped his product. 
one hundred miles or more to market or from the grocer who handled it. 
No! While all kinds of berries may suit some people, some kinds of berries 
wont suit all people. The farmer has a right to be particular what he eats 
and what his family eats, because he can afford to be. Yes. But what is a 
good variety of fruit for the farmer to raise? I answer, such a variety as 
will supply his table with fresh fruit every day in the year. He may have 
rhubarb or pieplant the first of May, which with proper culture will last for 
months. Strawberries will come the forepart of June, and last four weeks 
or more. Strawberries are most every one’s favorite. An eminent divine is 
credited with saying: “No doubt God could have made a better fruit that 
the strawberry, but He never did.” In my opinion the strawberries have 
done more to christianize the world than any other fruit. They have built 
more churches, paid more preachers’ salaries, sent more missionaries to the 
field, than all other fruits combined, and never caused the fall of man. 
