INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



WHEN the Goddess of Wisdom competed with the 

 other divinities as to which should produce the most 

 perfect work, she is said to have triumphed over her 

 rivals by calling into existence a fruit-tree. And 

 well did the ancient Greek in estimating so highly, 

 as this legend shows him to have done, the gifts with 

 which his soil had been enriched, for there can be 

 little question of the truth that, as an American 

 author remarks, " Fruit is the most perfect union of 

 the useful and the beautiful that the earth knows." 

 Yet in these days, when our cornucopia overflows 

 with treasures more lovely and delicious than Greek 

 imagination ever even conceived, appreciation of them, 

 except at the very moment when they are before 



