Time and the Tree 17 



ample as your treatment of it is careful. So on 

 your fruit-farm, the vineyard in April, July, August, 

 October, is ever evenly, quietly, bountifully, re- 

 sponding to your care. It is the almanac of 

 your life; it marks the divisions of your activities. 

 You bank on your vineyard; you hope for yotir 

 orchards. Grapes there will be, — cherries, prunes, 

 peaches, apples, there may be. Even the acres of 

 showy bloom may not mean cherries. Wind and 

 rain, untimely, may wash the prospective cherry- 

 crop to the ground. Cherries are occasional. 

 Yet the fruit-grower may make the occasion; he 

 may make a cherry crop every year in his soil. It 

 is an art, but not elusive. The soil-less man has 

 no cherries in his soil. He who puts them there 

 in potash, phosphoric acid, nitrogen, and htmius, — 

 clover, vetch, soybeans, stable manure, and drains 

 the earth bottom and top to keep the pores open, 

 and so sets soluble plant-food circulating through 

 it, finds them all later in the golden fruit on the 

 trees. And he never finds on tree or vine any 

 fruit he has not first deposited in the ground. Here 

 the miracle is seen: for every cherry he hides in 

 the earth he picks many a handful on the tree. So 

 it is quite possible that the fruit-grower banks 

 both on his vineyard and his orchard. The chances 

 are on his side. 



Feed thy tree 

 And it feeds thee; 

 Feed thy vine 

 And make thy wine. 



