CHAPTER XXVII. 



Conclusion. 



AND now, in closing this little volume on vegetables and 

 trees, their management and diseases, I wish to say 

 that I am well aware that it invites and will receive 

 contempt from some, and perhaps sharp criticism from 

 others. When, years ago, I first announced the facts in 

 regard to close root-pruning, quite a number of horticultur- 

 ists assailed me promptly, both in Texas and other states, 

 and by argument proved conclusively to their own satisfac- 

 tion that the thing could not be true and many, doubtless, 

 think so yet. But the root-pruned tree has come at last, and 

 to stay. Still, so slow, indeed, are men to lay aside old 

 prejudices and adopt new methods, that years may pass 

 before the hoary old fallacies of big holes, deep prepara- 

 tion, fall and winter plowing and pruning, as well as expen- 

 sive summer cultivation, are laid away to rest in the museum 

 of antiquated and mistaken ideas, alongside the notion that 

 the sun went around the world. They have caused not only 

 a waste of much money but a world of useless labor, as well 

 as bitter disappointment and blighted hopes, and to-day, on 

 hill and in dale, scattered everywhere, stunted, sickly and 

 dying fruit trees bear evidence of their deadly work. How- 

 ever, though reform has always been slow, and though the Pil- 

 grim Progress has ever had to travel rough and thorny paths, 

 wade through the mire of captious criticism, climb with 

 toiling step and slow the steep and rugged sides of great 

 Mountain Doubt, and ever and anon strike down with the club 

 of Fact the lusty giants Conservatism and Authority that block 

 his way yet in the end he always gets there just the same, 

 and waves his banner from the mountain top. And so, some 

 time in the coming future, the mowing machine will replace 

 the cultivator and the plow. Our close root-pruned trees 



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