48 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



less they are no more entitled to halos than are our 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 com- 

 mercial orchards of the middle West and the East, orchards of Gano, 

 York Imperial, Baldwin, Rhode Island and other at best culinary 

 varieties. No; they ignored these plantations and went to sources 

 which for them held vi\'id and desirable ideals, the fruit plantations 

 of their boyhood. 



Those plantations were neither set out by specialists nor primarily 

 for profit. Their main reasons for existence were that the family 

 enjoyed good fruit and wanted a continuous succession and an 

 abundant supply throughout the year. Though doubtless many 

 of these plantations were larger than necessary to supply even the 

 largest families of those days, the surplus was just so much to give 

 away to less fortunate relatives and to neighbors or to sell in the 

 local market. 



One of the most pleasing customs of those good old days, one 

 that deserves to be revived today, owed its charm to the choice 

 fruit grown in the family plantation. When visitors dropped in 

 for the afternoon or the evening the cm fait thing was to have the 

 company enjoy some home grown fruit before departing. This 

 was not served in the modern sense, now too frequently employed, 

 to indicate that the social session is at an end, but in the whole- 

 souled spirit of hospitality in the extending of which both host and 

 hostess could take a keener pleasure in serving a home grown 

 product and feeling that the favorable comments upon it were 

 more genuine than is possible when purchased provender is pro- 

 vided. What would have happened if Ben Davis apple, Kieffer 

 pear, Elberta peach, or Lombard plum had been used instead of the 

 choice varieties? Might not the guests have felt that as direct a 

 hint was being given them as when in baronial times the cold 

 shoulder of mutton was trotted out to apprise the guests that they 

 had outlasted their welcome? But who would have planted or 

 grown such inferior fruits with bore-bouncing intent? Would it 

 not have wasted valuable land and time and also indicated a lack 

 of resourcefulness on the part of host and hostess? 



