PROFITS OF FRUIT CULTURE. 17 



it no remote period a yearly return of five to fifteen hundred 

 dollars a year, and even more, if a considerable portion is 

 occupied with late keepers. This is, it is true, much more 

 than the majority obtain ; but the majority wholly neglect 

 cultivating and enriching the soils of their orchards. 



It is not, however, merely as a source of income, that the 

 cultivation of the finer kinds become profitable. The family 

 which is at all times supplied with delicious and refreshing 

 fruit from its own gardens, has within its reach not only a 

 very important means of economy, but of real domestic com- 

 fort. An influence is thus introduced of an exalted charac- 

 ter ; a tendency is directly exerted towards the improvement 

 of the manners of the people. Every addition to the at- 

 tractions of home, has a salutary bearing on a rising family 

 of children. The difference between a dwelling with well 

 planted grounds, and well furnished with every rural enjoy- 

 ment, and another where scarcely a single fruit tree softens 

 the face of bleakness and desolation, may, in many instances, 

 and to many a young man just approaching active life, serve 

 as the guiding influence between a useful life on the one 

 hand, or a roving and unprofitable one on the other be- 

 tween a life of virtue and refinement from early and favora- 

 ble influences, or one of dissipation and ruin from the over- 

 balancing effects of a repulsive home. Nor can any man, 

 even in the noon or approaching evening of life, scarcely 

 fail to enjoy a higher happiness, with at least an occasional 

 intercourse with the blossoming and loaded trees which his 

 own hand has planted and pruned, than in the noise of the 

 crowd and tumult of the busy world. 



