226 An American Fruit-Farm 



for riches both old and young may miss the mark. 

 The prize falls to another. Raiment and meat 

 become more than life. The folks exist for the 

 fruit-farm, not the farm for the folks. 



Various crops are raised in the Fruit Valley: 

 grapes, apples, berries, peaches, prunes, cherries, 

 plums of all colors, tomatoes, corn, melons, and 

 people. Thousands of tons of grapes, cherries, 

 berries; soil at eight hundred dollars an acre, and 

 more; winters in Florida, California, Cairo; auto- 

 mobiles; journeys to the center of the earth; build- 

 ings shining with architecture and new paint; 

 railroads, trolleys, cities, towns, villages, lawyers, 

 doctors, newspapers, — the endless list of things 

 called America. But the heaviest crop of all is 

 expectation: "To-morrow! To-morrow!** Then 

 shall orchards and vineyards and fields run more 

 to the acre than "Yesterday!" or "To-day!'* 

 Indeed, To-day is only a rabbit-run to To-morrow. 

 Gathering our crop To-morrow, we starve To-day ; 

 and Shakespeare could not be first to discover that 

 "all our yesterdays have lighted man the way to 

 dusty death.** 



The fruit-farmer is saving for to-morrow, forget- 

 ting to-day. The young folks live to-day. For- 

 gotten by the old folks they live in their own world 

 of fancy, immeasurably remote from the fruit- 

 farm. They live where fancy breeds. Is it in 

 vineyard or orchard? Or in the city? On the 

 coast? In the office? The factory? Is it any- 

 where save on the fruit-farm? An3rwhere save in 



