The Fruit- Farm and Old Age 319 



and, dying, gave each child an ample portion of 

 their ample estates. They were the elders, the 

 deacons, the 'sqmres, the colonels of their day: 

 large, vigorous men, who did things in a large 

 way, and thought little of overcoming difficul- 

 ties. They were of the builders of the nation. 



Most grandfathers and all great-grandfathers are 

 heroes to their posterity, — Homeric personages in 

 the history of the family, — and all more ancient 

 ancestors ^'were giants in those days.'* This 

 exaltation of ancestors was the religion of the classic 

 world and remains in much of the religion of to-day. 

 To have the right to carry busts of ancestors in the 

 funeral procession marked the divine origin of the 

 dead Roman and his living descendants. We in 

 the Valley do not carry such tokens of divinity on 

 our way to the grave, but we enjoy any knowledge 

 we think we possess of being fruit of a very ancient 

 tree whose roots run deep into European soil. 

 Between Adam and the Flood few of us find 

 difficulty in tracing descent, but grave embarrass- 

 ments arise between the Flood and the American 

 Revolution. Happily for all men — and of course 

 this includes us within the American Fruit 

 Valley, — when Nature fails, man bravely steps in : 

 there are nurseries in which genealogical trees of 

 any variety may be had, each of its kind, and 

 we may add, of its price. But in the days of 

 pioneering the fruit-trees in the Valley were not 

 from genealogical nurseries; rather did they come 

 from the wild. 



