34 An American Fruit-Farm 



groves amidst snow-banks. The supreme law 

 in farming is adaptation. Perfect adaptation 

 means perfect farming, and degrees of adaptation 

 shade off into utter failure. The farm is largely 

 man-made; it cannot be said to be wholly natural. 

 Indeed, the most productive farms are adaptations 

 which illustrate man's farthest departure from the 

 wild. Such adaptation, for htiman ends, exempli- 

 fies the best use of climate. Thus a ranch in the 

 Lake Erie Valley, or a vineyard among the Idaho 

 mountains is not an example of the nice adaptation 

 of climate to himian wants. The sim settled this 

 matter ages ago. 



Usually, in seeking a farm, a man is dominated 

 by his associations. Nearness to the old home, to 

 friends, to city or town, determines his choice 

 rather than the suitableness of the land itself to 

 the uses he purposes to make of it. The idea is 

 common that any land will raise anything possible 

 within the zone in which it lies. Thus most people 

 believe that oranges and cocoanuts grow in strings 

 along the equator, and apples anywhere in the 

 temperate zone. Yet we are assured that all 

 grains and fruits, all roots and leaves and stalks, 

 used by man as food, thrive best close to the north- 

 ern, or southern, limit of climatic production, 

 like oranges in Jaffa, Florida, and California, 

 and wheat in British America. If a man would 

 raise any farm product in perfection, he must 

 select his farm within the climatic belt adapted 

 to such production. This means specialization in 



