132 An American Fruit-Farm 



centrate plant-growth at one stage, or in some 

 part of plant-development. 



We are fattening the goose, not for eggs, but for 

 swollen, overgrown livers. We raise ostriches for 

 feathers; we grow vineyards for juice and pulp, 

 not for grape-seeds. Our problem then is to deflect 

 the vitality of the plant toward the abnormal over- 

 production of a particular part or organ. We 

 are ever breaking the balance of the plant's life. 

 This emphasis on the part accounts for many, if 

 not for most, of the diseases of our cultivated 

 plants. Rarely is a plant in the wild diseased. 

 There, it is true, only the fittest and favored sur- 

 vive, but the millions that perish die of starvation, 

 not of disease. Cultivated plants die of disease 

 brought on by overfeeding, or weakening one 

 part at the expense of another. Thus dwarf 

 varieties of fruit are always less hardy than the 

 normal stock, and shorter-lived. The three hun- 

 dred and more varieties of grapes are three him- 

 dred and more times as susceptible to disease as 

 the wild vine. There is a law of compensation 

 that runs through all fruit-growing: the more 

 delicate the quality and gross the quantity of a 

 fruit, the more liable is it to suffer from disease. 

 The so-called ''finest varieties'* are rarely hardy. 



It is best to understand at the very outset in 

 fruit-growing, that we are engaged in a somewhat 

 artificial business. We seek to produce our kind of 

 fruit, whether or not it is Nature's, and yet we 

 demand that the tree or vine shall maintain its 



