The Fruit-Farm and the Young Folks 217 



if you were a tree, or a stone, or a telephone pole, 

 not casting even the shy glance of fright. So when 

 the young folks start out in life, like fledglings, they 

 act as if any place is a safe refuge and all the world 

 an old friend. 



The prodigal son went to a far country: the far- 

 ther from home, the keener the isolation. Break- 

 ing home ties means turning your back on old 

 associations. If you leave home very early — ^say 

 in infancy, — ^you are spared the break; it comes 

 later, if at all. We who are parents and have 

 formed associations and know that a bundle of 

 them makes a human life, would secure our estate 

 — ^be it heritage or not — ^for our children. We know 

 the value of these associations and would have the 

 young folks know it also. But as the fledgling can- 

 not know where it shall alight when it soars from 

 the edge of the nest, so the young folks cannot know 

 their future when they break the home ties. 



The first settlers in the American wild desired, 

 as earnestly as do the owners to-day, to leave their 

 children valuable land as safest protection against 

 the day of want. Yet, turning over the pages of 

 the Book of the Fruit Valleys, we read of immi- 

 gration and emigration, east, west, and south, to 

 pastures new, to callings and vocations more to the 

 liking than fruit-farming. So too read the pages 

 of the book of any community in America. We 

 are a restless, a migratory people, who, in the short 

 space of a hundred years have overspread the con- 

 tinent, making settlements, organizing territories, 



