CHAPTER II. 



THE FRUIT GARDEN. 

 Raison d'etre. 



OMALL fruits, to people who live in the country, are like heaven, 

 O objects of universal desire and very general neglect Indeed, in a 

 land so peculiarly adapted to their cultivation, it is difficult to account 

 for this neglect if you admit the premise that Americans are civilized and 

 intellectual. It is the trait of a savage and inferior race to devour with 

 immense gusto a delicious morsel, and then trust to luck for another. 

 People who would turn away from a dish of " Monarch " strawberries, 

 with their plump pink cheeks powdered with sugar, or from a plate of 

 melting raspberries and cream, would be regarded as so eccentric as to 

 suggest an asylum ; but the number of professedly intelligent and moral 

 folk who ignore the simple means of enjoying the ambrosial viands daily, 

 for weeks together, is so large as to shake one's confidence in human 

 nature. A welUmaintained fruit garden is a comparatively rare adjunct 

 of even stylish and pretentious homes. In June, of all months, in sultry 

 July and August, there arises from innumerable country breakfast tables 

 the pungent odor of a meat into which the devils went, but out of which 

 there is no proof they ever came. From the garden under the windows 

 might have been gathered fruits whose aroma would have tempted spirits 

 of the air. The cabbage-patch may be seen afar, but too often the 

 strawberry-bed, even if it exists, is hidden by weeds, and the later small 

 fruits struggle for bare life in some neglected corner. Indeed, an 

 excursion into certain parts of New England might suggest that 



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