The Cultivation of the Fruit-Farm 165 



insects and fungi, new tools, market risks, trans- 

 portation, and the like. The list is of indefinite 

 length. No agricultural station runs his fruit- 

 farm, he cannot always obtain specific answers to 

 his inquiries; he must rely upon himself. To 

 many of his questions no satisfactory answer can 

 as yet be given. They have not been worked out. 

 That we are reaching a higher plane of fruit- 

 raising is indicated by the increased efficiency of 

 every department of horticultiural effort; we are 

 becoming scientific by grinding necessity. Legis- 

 latures make increasingly large appropriations for 

 the investigation and treatment of every agricultur- 

 al question, and, as never before in htmian history, 

 farming in every branch is becoming an exact 

 science. The agricultiu-al schools do as much for 

 the farmer as the law schools for the lawyer, the 

 medical schools for the doctor, and the engineering 

 schools for the engineer. Yet these agricultural 

 schools are not and cannot be the equivalent of 

 experience on the fruit-farm. The man who runs 

 a fruit-farm wholly according to bulletins of 

 Agricultural Stations, will cultivate, as Pliny said 

 centtuies ago, *'in the very highest style** but ''in 

 mere extravagance,** or, as Cato puts it, he will 

 have a farm ''with the spending habit** and "not 

 much will be left over.** In brief there are two 

 ways to run a fruit-farm: keep a bank account in 

 order to run a fruit-farm, or a fruit-farm in order 

 to have a bank account. No farm is faultless; no 

 orchard, vineyard, or section given to whatever 



