330 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



80 of strawberries ; 150 of peaches ; 200 of pears ; and 150 

 of plums. Only twenty-eight peaches are allow.ed to stand ; 

 and only twenty-six strawberries out of the hundreds that 

 were proved. We have no similar society in the United 

 States whose authority would be generally acknowledged. 

 Our only resource is the diffusion of the very best fruits 

 that every neighborhood may have a standard of compari 

 son by the reduction of experience to the form of rules. 

 Although it is difficult to lay down general rules on this 

 subject, there are three which may be mentioned. 



1. No fruit should be admitted to the list and none 

 retained upon it, which is decidedly poor. One would sup 

 pose this truism to be superfluous as a rule. But it is only 

 necessary to go out into seedling orchards in any neighbor 

 hood to find small, tough, and flavorless apples, which hold 

 their place alongside of orchards filled with choice grafted 

 fruit. 



2. No seedling fruit should be added to the list, which 

 is in no respect better than those of the same period of 

 ripening already cultivated. It is not enough that an 

 apple is nearly or quite as good as another favorite ap 

 ple. It must be as good in flavor, and better in some of its 

 habits. 



3. In testing the merits of fruit, an estimate should be 

 the result of a consideration of all the habits, jointly, of the 

 tree and of the fruit. It is in the application of this rule 

 that great experience and judgment are required. This 

 will be plain, if one considers how many essential particu 

 lars enter into a first-rate fruit beside mere flavor. 



Of two fruits equal in flavor, one may surpass the other 

 in tenderness of flesh, in juiciness, in delicacy of skin, and 

 in size. It is rare that any single fruit combines all these 

 excellences, and therefore it is that we retain several vari 

 eties, among which such properties are distributed. 



There are many fruits which, having good substance and 

 flavor, derive their value from some single peculiarity. 



