The Cultivation of the Fruit-Farm 171 



neglected vineyards and orchards, in all fruit 

 sections, belong to blind, deaf, and unreasoning 

 men : for none are so blind as they who will not see. 

 He may say that he sees, but he is merely repeating 

 words he does not comprehend. 



In oiu- day the isolation and individualism of the 

 farmer are vanishing; he is affected, as never 

 before, by the world at large. Railroads, trolleys, 

 motors bring fruit-growers into association. See- 

 ing is becoming believing, and the presence of a 

 well-managed estate in a fruit section works better- 

 ment of the whole region. Thorough cultivation 

 tells its own story. No fruit-grower now lives far 

 from the market; it is measured by accessibility, 

 not by intervening miles. Necessity makes farm 

 and market neighbors. Even if the market be a 

 thousand miles from the farm it is no farther than 

 the time taken to reach it and the cost of transpor- 

 tation. In the Lake Shore Valley the fruit-grower 

 picks cherries, say a hundred or more bushels 

 a day during the cherry season. Every afternoon 

 at 3 o'clock he ships to New York; at 6 o'clock, to 

 Pittsbtirgh. At 7 o'clock next morning his fruit 

 is selling in these markets; by noon he has tele- 

 graphic returns. This means reduction of distance 

 to lowest terms; it means more than this, — more 

 cherries, better fruit, both on the farm and in the 

 market; the grower better satisfied, the consumer 

 too than ever before. It means a more careful 

 selection of varieties; a closer study of the soil; 

 a more thorough cultivation of the orchard. It 



