Noble common fruit, best frieud of man and most loved«by him, follow- 

 ing him lllie his dog or his cow, wherever he goes. His homestead is not 

 planted till you are planted, your roots intertwine with his ; thriving best 

 where he thrives, loving the limestone and the frost, the plow and the 

 pruning-kuife, you are indeed suggestive of hardy, cheerful industry, and 

 a healthy life in the open air. Temperate, chaste fruit ! you mean neither 

 luxury nor sloth, neither satiety nor indolence, neither enervating heats 

 nor the frigid zones. Uncloying fruit, fruit whose best sauce is the open 

 air, whose finest flavors only he whose taste is sharpened by brisk work 

 or walking knows; winter fruit, when the fire of life burns brightest; 

 fruit always a little hyperborean, leaning toward the cold ; bracing, sub- 

 acid, active fruit. I think you must have come from the north, you are 

 so frank and honest, so sturdj^ and appetizing. You are stocky and 

 homely like the northern races. Your quality is Saxon. Surely the fiery 

 and impetuous south is not akin to thee. Not spices or olives or the 

 sumptuous liquid fruits, but the grass, the snow, the grains, the coolness 

 is akin to thee. I think if I could subsist on you, or the like of you, I 

 should never have an intemperate or ignoble thought, never be feverish 

 or despondent. So far as I could absorb or transmute your quality I 

 should be cheerful, continent, equitable, sweet. — John Burroughs. 



