250 An American Fruit-Farm 



prosperity. Rarely would he recommend any 

 variety. ''You can never tell what pranks a tree 

 will cut up, " he said to a neighbor who asked him 

 to recommend some variety of cherries. "I take 

 the kind I like best." He always spoke of his 

 orchards and vines as his friends. I think he 

 communed with them in their own tongue, for he 

 understood their secrets. They seemed to make 

 their wants known to him and he treated them with 

 as much consideration as a member of his house- 

 hold. For this reason I think he would not enlarge 

 his estate; he knew his own limitations, and was 

 wise enough not to attempt too scattered a friend- 

 ship. Hannibal is said to have known personally 

 all the members of his army; Neville seemed 

 to know each vine and tree as an individual 

 friend. While he ran a fruit-farm, he also made a 

 companion of each tree and vine on it. 



Herein lay his secret, his incommimicable secret. 

 '* If a man would have friends, " so runs a saying in 

 the ancient Book, ''he must show himself friendly.** 

 And again, "The tree of the field is man's life." 

 Neville knew how to be friendly with peach tree 

 and cherry, with prune and with grape-vine. I 

 do not know how he maintained this relation, 

 unless, as once he hinted to me, by association. 

 Trees and vines were part of his life and so he 

 understood them. Often have I seen him wander- 

 ing alone among the rows of the vineyard, fingering 

 the broad, swinging leaves; or under his peach trees, 

 feeling limb and bark, as it were caressing the tree. 



