8 An American Fruit-Farm 



bear. A fruit-farm is quite like a railroad. Road- 

 way and rolling-stock must be of the best and must 

 be kept up with the times, or accidents multiply, 

 dividends fail, the line goes into bankruptcy. 

 The fruit-farm must be kept at highest efficiency; 

 no other condition is worth having. On the stem 

 basis of profit and loss the best conditions are the 

 most profitable, cost as they must. 



While all this is going on, associations are form- 

 ing ; rooting deeper than tree or vine ; rising higher 

 than leaf or fruit. Your fruit-plantations become 

 part of yourself; the woof and web of your think- 

 ing; the background of your memories; the scene 

 of your activity. And the children have grown 

 up with you and the vines and trees. But of 

 children one must speak conditionally: they did 

 not make the fruit-farm and their associations 

 are not yours. The farm has been your educa- 

 tion, not theirs. Each generation thinks its own 

 thoughts and your posterity will not, cannot see 

 themselves in vineyards and orchards as you see 

 yotirself. In a mysterious sense each lives unto 

 himself. You cannot live yotir child's life any 

 more than could your father live your life. True, 

 you have ancestral memories, but they seem, after 

 all, of another world, not of yours. 



What then becomes of the fruit-farm? Usually 

 it passes to strangers, just as it came to you. 

 They must repeat the story: build associations, 

 enjoy for a season, and pass the opportunity on 

 to strangers. It is ever the case of Time and the 



