Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



pastry-cook's ! A white hand looks better on a basket 

 of strawberries than on any sophisticated preparation 

 from the oven. Man or woman, whoever it may be, 

 that renders the comely meed of ripe fruit, takes us, 

 in that pleasant action, so much the nearer to nature, 

 thus to the pure, upon which we can always rest in 

 faith. 



Surely, too, it is because so good for us that Nature 

 yields her fruits in abundance so vast. No niggard hand 

 is that which converts the orange-tree into an eldorado, 

 and hangs the crimson clusters upon the currant-bushes. 

 Happy the day when the munificent design of all this 

 shall be recognized by statesmen and every one in 

 power, and simple alimentary fruit, that costs little to 

 produce, be reckoned as one of the genuine " rights of 

 the people." Happy again when it is remembered that 

 God sends fruit, as He sends flowers, not for personal 

 pleasure only, but for employment in kindly charities, 

 very specially in the hospital. A sound and large- 

 hearted Christianity is better declared by the gift to a 

 poor creature who has lain for weeks, perhaps months, 

 on the couch of sickness, of a bunch of grapes, or a 

 basket of strawberries, the " fruit of refreshing," than by 

 any amount of aeriform benedictions. Here, indeed, it 

 is "blessed to give." For the same reasons, how vast 

 becomes the practical importance of seeing that our 

 gardens and orchards contain the best varieties, the 

 sweetest and the most prolific. Fruit-culture, fortunately, 

 is no longer hap-hazard, but now conducted upon scien- 



