i6 An American Fruit-Farm 



With the fruit-grower things rarely turn out as 

 well as he hopes or so badly as he fears. No man 

 can weigh the fruit on the vine or tell the number 

 of bushels in the orchard. Cherries hang in count- 

 less red balls and grapes in countless purple amidst 

 the green. Nature may know how many; we 

 take to the scales. Who has ever heard in April 

 of the failure of the Delaware peach crop? If my 

 memory fails not, the farmer's crop always fails 

 somewhere in April; I speak by the newspapers. 

 But in the Lake Shore Valley in April and May, 

 grapes are always to be a heavy crop ; they blossom 

 in June. In July, the crop is always "less than 

 last year"; in August, the berries swell and color 

 and look quite pompous; '*a btimper crop," say 

 the newspapers. In late September and through 

 October, is the harvest. Your vineyard returns 

 as you gave to it. No soil, no vine; no vine, no 

 wine. Your grapes weigh up to your feeding of 

 the soil. Nature knows her own. You starved 

 your land and now you starve; you fed your land 

 and now it feeds you. In the Valley, Nature 

 keeps a strict ledger account with every acre and 

 its owner and returns investment of care with 

 interest, but discounts all poor farming. Feed 

 the Concord vineyard well and every year it faith- 

 fully responds, and it is the only plant in the Valley 

 which never fails to respond. Other plants take 

 a year off, — cherries, plimis, peaches, apples, prunes, 

 currants, but the Concord never takes a vacation. 

 You can depend upon it to bear you a harvest as 



