62 An American Fruit-Farm 



''I am looking for a climate,'* is the invalid 

 traveler's constant plaint; he means, of course, 

 that he is looking for elastic arteries. They are 

 health. Being now definite, we can test our habi- 

 tat, our fruit valley — ^wherever it lies — for arteries, 

 just as physicians take the pressure of the blood. 

 For blood-pressure is symptomatic. So too are 

 vocations, as any one may know by perusing the 

 reports of life-insurance companies. "Occupation, 

 fruit-growing"; "cashier in a bank"; the company 

 figures nicely on the risk and takes the man who 

 is likely to pay premitims the longer time — ^judging 

 by his arteries. Life insurance is common among 

 bank clerks; uncommon among fruit-growers, for 

 they prefer, like some steamship companies, to 

 carry their own risks. He has the farm as insur- 

 ance; the clerk has his month's salary. The 

 fruit-grower has earth and the open; the clerk has 

 the park and the street, the office, bank holidays, 

 and two weeks in August for Atlantic City, or 

 the Canadian woods. The fruit-grower has the 

 security of his land; the clerk, the secret of his 

 earning power — ^which is his health — and this he 

 is insuring. The fruit-grower falls back upon his 

 fruit-farm; the clerk upon his insurance policy. 

 But the insurance policy means annual premiums 

 to the company; the fruit-farm, annual fruit to 

 the farmer. A few years after I began fruit-farm- 

 ing, I took out an endowment policy in a great 

 mutual company. I was examined duly by the 

 company's physician and pronounced a good risk. 



