SEED-VESSELS WE EAT 211 



French and Dutch horticulturists to improve this 

 fruit. Choice varieties were developed by monks 

 who trained the trees on walls so that the ripening 

 fruit should have full benefit of the sun's heat, and 

 defence against cold winds. This method pro- 

 duces fine pears in England, which has too cool a 

 climate, and too little sun to ripen pears in any 

 other way. 



QUINCES 



In the gardens of New England you will find 

 dwarf trees that blossom with lovely pink clusters 

 of flowers like wild roses, and bear golden apples 

 in the fall. Taste one, and its flesh is too hard to 

 eat. This is the old-fashioned quince, cultivated 

 from the earliest times, when it came into cultiva- 

 tion from the wilds of North Africa, and southern 

 Europe, and from the slopes of the Himalayas. 

 It was revered by the ancients : it is revered to-day 

 by the housewife who inherits and tries to live up 

 to the traditions of her mother and grandmothers. 

 And who can do that unless she has in her fruit 

 cellar stores of quince preserves and jelly? "Mar- 

 melo, " is the Portuguese name for the quince; so 

 other fruits are masquerading in borrowed finery 

 when they are preserved under the label, mar- 

 malade. The peculiar change of the white flesh 



