86 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
Fruit growing as a sole occupation requires fav- 
orable soil, climate, and market, and also a con- 
siderable degree of aptitude on the part of the 
manager, to make it highly profitable. A fruit- 
grower in our climate must have other interests 
if he would make the most of his time. While 
waiting for his fruit he can raise food for hens 
and hogs; and if he feeds hens and hogs, 
he should keep as many cows as he can. He 
will then use in his own factory all the raw 
material he can raise. This will again be re- 
turned to the land as a by-product, which will 
not only maintain the fertility of the farm, but 
even increase it. If his cows are of the best, 
they will yield butter enough to pay for their 
food and to give a profit; the skim milk, fed to 
the hogs and hens, will give eggs and pork out 
of all proportion to its cost ; and everything that 
grows upon his land can thus be turned off as a 
finished product for a liberal price, and yet the 
land will not be depleted. The orchard is better 
for the hens and hogs and cows, and they are 
better for the orchard. These industries fit into 
each other like the folding of hands; they seem 
mutually dependent, and yet they are often di- 
vorced, or, at best, only loosely related. This 
view may seem to be the result of post hoc rea- 
soning, but I think it is not. I believe I imbibed 
these notions with my mother’s milk, for I can 
remember no time when they were not mine. 
The psalmist said, «Comfort me with apples”; 
