CHAPTER XIII 



Home Fruits as Educators 

 of Public Taste* 



Where Western and Other Growers of Choice Fruits Got 

 Their Standards Originating New Varieties 



WHILE the past five, and especially the last three, decades have 

 seen more remarkable improvements in horticultural practices 

 than did the previous five for instance, the development of 

 modern tillage, fertilizing, cover cropping, spraying and rational 

 pruning which have made the fruit-growing industries of today highly 

 specialized arts, perhaps the most significant development of all is the 

 increased and steadily increasing public demand for fruit varieties 

 of high quality. For this growth, particularly so far as Apples are 

 concerned, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and other Western orchard- 

 ists doubtless deserve considerable credit, first because they boldly 

 nailed their colors to high standards of excellence, both as to variety 

 and to character of specimen, and second because they deliberately 

 set about the education of the public with respect to such standards. 

 In these two directions they have not only themselves benefited, but 

 they have performed a service alike to the consuming public and to 

 fruit growers in general. Fruit growers in other sections have been 

 steadily falling into line and the markets of our larger cities are annually 

 being more liberally supplied with high-quality fruits. 



Where did these Western and other growers of choice fruit get their 

 standards? Did they adopt the caveat emptor (let-the-buyer-beware) 

 policy which so often tends to arouse the righteous ire of the long- 

 suffering and hoodwinked public? Not at all. Did they go to the 

 growers of Ben Davis Apple, Kieffer Pear, Elberta Peach, Lombard 

 Plum, Lady Thompson Strawberry and other low-quality varieties for 

 their standards of flavor? No, indeed! Doubtless they are no 

 more entitled to halos than are Eastern growers for the honesty 

 of their pack, because the cost of transportation prohibits their 

 adoption of dishonest packing methods; they have been forced 

 to pack honestly or go to the wall. But where did they get their 

 standards of flavor ? Certainly not in the big commercial orchards of 

 the Middle-West and the East orchards of Gano, York Imperial, 

 Baldwin, Rhode Island and other, at best, culinary varieties. No ; 



* Address before the American Pomological Society, Boston, 1917. 

 204 



