On Fruit-Critics. 215 



upon humble food, with gratitude j which will make vigorous foray upon 

 a well -ripened cluster of even the Concord grape, without wiping the tongue 

 around critically in search of missing flavors. There is a wise saying of 

 an old Latinist, Nil sapiential odiosius acimwie nimio (which every for- 

 ward school-girl in tilting hoops can translate). 



Again : I doubt very much if the finest flavored fruits can be grown as 

 easily as the grosser tasting ones. I am quite aware that this dictum may 

 start an angry buzz about my ears ; but a good angry buzz in the matter of 

 fruit discussion is often a very helpful thing. 



Finest flavors seem to me to cost the finest labor, whether in fruit or 

 speeches or poems or lives. Good things are aptest to come only by great 

 care and task-work, no matter through whom or through what they come. 

 Take the Delaware grape, for instance, whose flavor is, I think, admitted 

 by all to be equal if not superior to that of any of our out-of-door grapes ; 

 yet only extreme care will give it fair size. Its buds are specially reluctant 

 to grow under any of the ordinary means of propagation ; it demands as- 

 siduous and delicate handling ; it invites the thrips and all manner of vine- 

 disorders, just as a delicate though promising child invites the whole 

 curriculum of child diseases. Again: take the lona, whose rare flavor and 

 signal beauty no one who has ever seen and tasted it can dispute ; yet the 

 ordinary hap-hazard cultivator will very likely fail with it. It has grown 

 up and developed under the best of nursing. It is offered to the public by 

 one who does not believe in poor culture, scarcely in moderately good cul- 

 ture, but only in the best \ and, with the best, it is a most admirable 

 grape. But what shall we do with our friends Seth and Nathan, who do 

 not know what first-class culture is ? Shall we commend to them what 

 will very likely perish under their hands ? 



In the pear line, it is quite possible, that with great nicety of treatment, 

 both in garden-culture and in the ripening process (which last counts for 

 a great deal), a higher and finer flavor may be given to the Beurre Diel, or 

 the Flemish Beauty, or the Beurre d'Anjou, or even the Duchess, than be- 

 longs ordinarily to the Bartlett. But put the Bartlett in comparison with 

 either under fair average treatment, and upon ordinary garden lands, and 

 I think two luscious Bartletts will present themselves to one of either of 

 the other names. Now, it is quite possible that the man who does not 



