Selecting the Farm 65 



York and Pittsburgh and Chicago that the 

 pickers cannot afford to eat them. The elevation 

 above the sea — five hundred and seventy-three 

 feet at the lake and thirteen hundred and more 

 feet along the crest of the Valley — is too high and 

 the winds too dry for lung troubles. But the 

 water from the limestone in the Devonian Hills 

 at the south is so hard on the human frame that 

 when pickers tumble, without notice, from cherry 

 trees, they may crack their bones; although some 

 pickers use water only as a wash. Because of this, 

 their aversion, other liquids are consumed, as in 

 other valleys in America. This is one of the perils 

 of fruit-farming. Despite these drawbacks, the 

 health of the inhabitants is reflected by thousands 

 of acres of fruitful orchard and vineyard. These 

 are the fruit-growers root and branch. Not 

 every fruit-farm betokens a healthy master. 

 Farms get down at the heels and lose hope, and 

 so merely hold the world together. The healthy 

 fruit-plantation means a healthy owner. Valleys 

 and plains the world over illustrate this truth. 



But here, in the beautiful Valley, men are think- 

 ing and doing, and so are healthy. Some might 

 think harder and do more; some year after year 

 think and do less. So there are stationary fruit- 

 farms, like bowlders, left by the retreating ice of 

 the Glacial Period, ages ago, — mere monuments of 

 former progress. It is no art to find the complexion 

 of the owner's mind in the appearance of his vine- 

 yard. The Valley is a good place in which to study 



