An American Fruit-Farm 



TIME AND THE TREE 



SHAKESPEARE^S song, "The Greenwood 

 Tree," is enough to enroll his name among 

 the immortals. A tree, like a man, requires asso- 

 ciations to give it dignity and virtue. Contrast 

 the newly set sprig with the old tree in the orchard : 

 hope and realization; promise and potency; lone- 

 liness and association. Time seats the tree in 

 dignity and power. When orchard and orchardist 

 grow old together, they weave associations about 

 the fruit-farm. Labor sanctifies as it breaks with 

 the wild. The house you built, the orchard you 

 planted, the vines which have passed through 

 your hands as cuttings, yearlings, and purple fruit 

 become part of the landscape of your life, old famil- 

 iar faces which smile even when the sky frowns. 

 And if there were loved ones whose willing hands, 

 now quiet, helped; whose voices, now silent, en- 

 couraged, — all has the touch of the altar. 



So we grow old with the trees, though their wild 



