CHAPTER II. 



THE FRUIT GARDEN. 



Raison d'etre. 



OMALL fruits, to people who live in the country, are like 

 ^ heaven, — objects of universal desire and very general 

 neglect. Indeed, in a land so peculiarly adapted to their 

 cultivation, it is difficult to account for this neglect if you 

 admit the premise that Americans are civilized and intellec- 

 tual. It is the trait of a savage and inferior race to devour 

 with immense gusto a delicious morsel, and then trust to 

 luck for another. People who would turn away from a dish 

 of " Monarch " strawberries, with their plump pink cheeks 

 powdered with sugar, or from a plate of melting raspberries 

 and cream, would be regarded as so eccentric as to suggest 

 an asylum ; but the number of professedly intelligent and 

 moral folk who ignore the simple means of enjoying the 

 ambrosial viands daily, for weeks together, is so large as to 

 shake one's confidence in human nature. A well-maintained 

 fruit garden is a comparatively rare adjunct of even stylish 

 and pretentious homes. In June, of all months, in sultry 

 July and August, there arises from innumerable country 

 breakfast tables the pungent odor of a meat into which the 

 devils went, but out of which there is no proof they ever 

 came. From the garden under the windows might have 

 been gathered fruits whose aroma would have tempted spir- 

 its of the air. The cabbage-patch may be seen afar, but 



