Time and the Tree 3 



when we set out these six hundred and six Concord 

 cuttings each with its fringe of root about a little 

 stick of vine ? A thousand baskets of purple prunes ? 

 Did we plant a thousand baskets of prunes when 

 we planted those small, spinous, scraggly sprigs? 

 Two hundred bushels of raspberries? And when 

 did my neighbor plant a thousand baskets of 

 peaches? Or were they peach sprouts, a few inches 

 high that now are dark, rich, shining green boughs, 

 bending low with luscious fruit? Time and the 

 Tree, Man and Nature wrought this miracle; a 

 glorious treasviry of associations. ''Yes,'* you 

 say; *' cherries at three dollars a bushel; grapes at 

 thirty-eight dollars a ton; peaches at one dollar 

 a basket; raspberries at five dollars a bushel, are 

 associations, very tender associations; give me, 

 I pray you, a hundred acres of such associations!*' 



True, the fruitful orchard and vineyard form 

 peculiar associations with the world at large; such 

 associations as half reconcile the young fruit-grower 

 and his young wife "to try it another year.'* 

 Suppose five, ten, twenty, fifty years and acres 

 of cherries, peaches, prunes, grapes, berries. What 

 of the associations of a lifetime? Shakespeare 

 knew the meaning of his song, "Under the Green- 

 wood Tree." He knew the harsh world and the 

 kindly tree and would rather entrust himself to 

 wintry weather beneath its boughs than to a wintry 

 world which holds man in no kind association. 



There is wisdom in trees. Use the old ones; 

 plant new ones; no fruit-farm is made in a day. 



