6o An American Fruit-Farm 



What have we in this bunch of red cherries and 

 of purple grapes? Engineering. The man thought 

 and did, and lo, this fruit! No thinking, no 

 peaches. *'Yes," you interrupt, "but what of 

 frost, wind, hail, blight, and borer?" I reply: 

 There is no peach but thinking makes it so, and 

 the more you ponder this, the better judge of 

 peaches you will become. Climate makes the 

 peach possible, if only some one thinks peaches. 

 For the peach is as much man-made as a piano. 

 There are no Steinways at the North Pole; the 

 climate is unfavorable; nor peaches, nor people, 

 for that matter. The law of peaches is climate 

 and man. He thinks out the peach, the cherry, 

 the grape, the apple; no thinking, no fruit; only 

 the seeds of the wild, which are not our fruit. 



Thus in fruit-farming man is a creator, and 

 creation, procreation, is health. Iron and steel 

 and stones cannot think; "as dtimb as a rock" 

 has much significance. Stones neither grow old nor 

 sicken; they exist. But man must do more than 

 exist, — ^he must think and act; and because the 

 fruit-farm offers him opportunity, it makes for 

 health. Every profession exalts itself; and every 

 fruit-farm is the best farm, so says its owner. 

 His ideals may be ahead of his deeds. 



A man is a creature of parts, wonderfully made 

 and assembled, and wherever these parts function 

 best there he should live, — if health is his purpose. 

 Theoretically health is every man's objective; 

 practically, it is only a possible objective for many. 



