52 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



probably far more than among the commercial fruit growers are 

 our authorities of the rising and future generations to be found. 

 To determine the truth of this statement I suggest that my auditors 

 examine the list of present day investigators, teachers, and writers 

 on fruit growing to see how few are the sons of commercial, and 

 how many of amateur fruit growers. The result I venture to say 

 will be surprising. 



Let me hasten to say my audience is mistaken if it has concluded 

 from any of my remarks that I advocate a return to the hit-or-miss 

 methods of former days. I most certainly do not. I am a firm 

 advocate of every method that makes for better fruit and more of 

 it. What I have striven to emphasize is the importance of re- 

 placing the now largely decrepit fruit plantations with new ones 

 of the choicest varieties to be handled according to the best modern 

 methods. By the establishment of such plantations the standards 

 of excellence will continue to rise or at least be maintained. There- 

 by we may confidently look for improvement in the general stand- 

 ard of excellence ; for as the floor of a valley is raised by the descent 

 of soil from the mountains, so must the refinement of taste be 

 improved by the increased popularity of high quality fruits. Fruit 

 growing should, and thereby can, be made to minister, perhaps as 

 favorably as music, art, and literature, to the sensibilities of the 

 family, the community, and the nation. Such environments as 

 superior family fruit plantations afford seem to be the most favor- 

 able for the training of future fruit lovers and specialists among 

 the rising generation. 



In these days of government and state departments of agricul- 

 ture, of agricultural colleges, and experiment stations, and of huge 

 commercial fruit growing interests, amateur fruit growers are too 

 prone to consider themselves as "merely amateurs" and therefore 

 relegated to a less useful class than that of the scientists. From 

 the spectacular standpoint they are doubtless correct, because 

 they have neither institution nor title to push them, whether 

 worthy or not, into prominence. Nevertheless, without the least 

 intention to belittle the work of the scientists it must be said that 

 the world owes an incalculable debt of gratitude, to say nothing of 

 monetary considerations, to countless amateurs — printers, mer- 

 chants, doctors, lawyers, lumbermen, millers, editors, factory 



