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Feeding the Land 193 



away the true seeds of apple, peach, grape, berry, 

 ' — the pit, or stone. The plant-food we are seeking 

 is really pulp-food. We prefer seedless apples, 

 strawberries, currants, grapes; pitless cherries, 

 peaches, prunes; and we measure our horticultural 

 skill not by the size of the true fruit — the seed or 

 pit or, to be accurate, the kernel within the husk 

 or shell or skin, but by the quality, the color, the 

 .quantity of the pulp which envelops the true 

 ruit. Nature, left alone, grows little pulp, but 

 expends her energies on kernel, shell, or husk. We 

 cultivate the pulp and try to make the kernel 

 atrophy. So we fertilize and cross-fertilize, bud, 

 graft, mix, and breed to secure the peach with the 

 smallest freestone and the largest, most luscious 

 and attractive pulp. 



Happily barren, dead land is rare. Poor land is 

 comparatively rich. A fair test of land is the weeds 

 it will grow. A soil covered with tall, thick, dank, 

 glossy, blooming weeds means a rich soil. Change 

 weeds and you raise tobacco, tomatoes, trees, 

 potatoes, cabbages, vines. Barren land may be 

 rich in minerals of the kind which, in soluble 

 and limited form, feed plants. A bed of pure 

 nitrate or phosphate would not support plant life 

 any more than one of pure carbon, oxygen, or 

 nitrogen, salt or iron would support animal life. 

 Yet a sprinkling of nitrate of soda sets a plant 

 bounding into leaf and stem, and a pinch of potash, 

 soluble and fed to the tree or the vine, paints 

 peaches crimson and grapes ptirple. The soil 

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