WILD FRUITS OF FARM 17 



them. Cranberries and some blueberries demand bog con- 

 ditions which strawberries and apples will not endure. 



The wild fruits in a state of nature, have their enemies also, 

 which are ever with them when cultivated. The fruit-fly of 

 the cherry, the codling moth of the apple, the plum-curculio 

 and all the other insect pests of the fruit garden, have merely 

 moved into the garden from the wildwood. And they 

 flourish equally in the wildwood still. When, for example, 

 an orchardist has rid his trees of codling moths, a fresh stock 

 soon arrives from the unnoticed wild apples of the adjacent 

 woods, and infests his trees again. 



So, we must go back to nature to find the sources of our 

 benefits and of their attendant ills. 



The wild fruits of the farm all grow in out-of-the way places 

 that escape the plow. They grow in the fence-row, by the 

 brookside, on the stony slope. If in the forest, they grow 

 only in the openings or in the edges; for fruit trees do not 

 grow so tall as the trees of the forest cover, and cannot endure 

 much shading. The bush fruits especially are wont to spring 

 up in the fence-row, where birds have perched and have 

 dropped seeds from ripe fruit they have eaten. The}^ are a 

 lusty lot of berry-bearing shrubs and vines that tend to form 

 thickets, and when cut down by the tidy farmer, they spring 

 up again with cheerful promptness from uninjured roots. In 

 a few years they are in bearing again. The neglected fence- 

 row is, therefore, one of the best places to search for the lesser 

 wild fruits. 



Of nature's fruits there is endless variety. They grow on 

 tree, shrub, herb and vine. They are large and small, sweet 

 and sour, pleasant and bitter, wholesome and poisonous. 

 They mellow in the sun like apples, or sweeten with the frosts 

 like persimmons. They hang exposed like plums, or are 

 hidden in husks like ground-cherries. The edible ones that 

 remain growing wild in the autumn are a rather poor lot of 



