50 An American Fruit-Farm 



health and farming seems to be as old as the race. 

 Yet in no vocation is invalidism a prerequisite. 

 Farming compels good health for it puts the man 

 to the test. No vocation demands abler or saner 

 men. It is an illusion that farming does not 

 require brains; that when a man has failed at 

 everything else he may resort, successfully, to 

 farming; that nobody can fail at that. The pro- 

 fessional collector of statistics has neglected a field 

 here quite untouched, as to the number of farmers 

 who fail as farmers. Horticultiure is expert-work 

 and he who is not an expert need not hope to raise 

 fruit, — ^perfect fruit and in ample quantity. There 

 is a difference. To raise peaches and not peach- 

 pits, merely, requires peach-thinking; not peach- 

 pit thinking. A man's mind must be attimed to 

 the keynote of his vocation, and his vocation is to 

 be measured as it conduces to the general welfare. 

 Thus to a healthy mind horticulture has its pleas- 

 ures; to a diseased mind, no vocation is pleastn*able. 

 We come then again to the man; his vocation 

 depends upon his health. A sick fruit-grower 

 means a neglected fruit-farm. The farm never 

 misrepresents its owner. In order to have healthy 

 farms the fruit valley must have healthy farmers. 

 Mere residence on a fruit-farm does not generate 

 either health or the fruit-farming sense. Fruit- 

 farmers, like poets, are bom, not made. 



Yet, ignorant as we are of the laws of health, we 

 know that earth and air are the mother of sound 

 mind and body. The billionaire who trudges 



