52 An American Fruit-Farm 



lands; had amassed a fortune. He had not tried 

 all occupations, but he was now generalizing in 

 very bold fashion. One of the best fruit-growers 

 in the Valley became one after having given forty 

 years of his life to the shoe business, acquiring 

 wealth. **I wish I had begun at the start, and 

 not when I was old," he said. **I never suspected 

 what I was missing of pleasure,'* and he was 

 thinking, though not aloud, "of profits also." 



"But the world," you reply, "is not composed 

 wholly of successful electrical engineers and shoe- 

 dealers; there are others." More money is spent 

 to regain health than to keep it, and most men 

 who have spent the first half of life making money, 

 spend the second half in fighting disease and ward- 

 ing off death. First part, gain; second part, pain, 

 — ^is the story of most men's lives. And never a 

 Croesus who would not exchange his last ingot of 

 gold for a loaf of bread and a stomach to digest it. 

 "Skin upon skin, yea, all that a man hath will he 

 give for his life." 



So again we come at last to the man, and princi- 

 pally to his stomach. Give me the stomach and 

 I will not only rule the world but will live forever, 

 — if either were worth while ! Fruit-farming, like 

 every other vocation, is a case of stomach. No 

 business concern will employ an invalid. The 

 basis of life is physical whether you enter the army 

 or the orchard. Nature promptly solves the prob- 

 lem by applying her harsh law of survival. The 

 world is not made of weaklings; every blade is a 



