12 An American Fruit- Farm 



The choice fruit regions of America are favored 

 locations, few in number and of Hmited area. Land 

 values within them are now higher than elsewhere 

 in the country. They will ever be higher than 

 other farm lands. Sometimes the bonds and 

 stock of a corporation become so valuable that they 

 are never in the open market. Heirs do not part 

 with them. Fruit-farms are the favored estates 

 in America, more favored than coal or mineral or 

 lumber lands, for these, once exhausted, are of 

 slight worth. Fruit-lands properly managed are 

 inexhaustible. Cato knew this two thousand 

 years ago and advised his countrymen to adapt 

 the culture of their lands to the wants of the times. 

 The history of Rome is the history of the land; 

 so too is the history of France, of Germany, of 

 England, Scotland, Ireland. The history of Amer- 

 ica is the history of the land, more difficult to 

 understand because land in this country has ap- 

 proximated personal property in ease of transfer, 

 — an innovation unknown in any other country. 

 The history of the Fruit Valley is the story of its 

 land. Climate holds the pen. 



The man who has spent his life building up a 

 fruit-farm knows that little remains at the close 

 that existed at the beginning. The tree, the vine, 

 the shrub, the root of to-day, is not that of a few 

 years ago. The old has passed ; the new is passing. 

 Those hungry, thirsty cells which in earth or air 

 are drinking in plant-food will themselves soon 

 become plant-food. Half a ton of leaves grow on 



