CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINARY PARLEY. 



IN the ages that were somewhat shadowed, to say the least, when Nature 

 indulged her own wild moods in man, and the world he trampled on 

 rather than cultivated, there was a class who in their dreams and futile 

 efforts became the unconscious prophets of our own time the Alchemists. 

 For centuries they believed they could transmute base metals into gold and 

 silver. Modern knowledge enables us to work changes more beneficial 

 than the alchemist ever dreamed of, and it shall be my aim to make one of 

 these secrets as open as the sunlight in the fields and gardens wherein the 

 beautiful mutations occur. To turn iron into gold would be a prosaic, 

 barren process that might result in trouble to all concerned, but to trans- 

 form heavy black earth and insipid rain-water into edible rubies with 

 celestial perfume and ambrosial flavor, is indeed an art that appeals to the 

 entire race, and enlists that imperious nether organ which has never lost 

 its power over heart or brain. As long, therefore, as humanity's mouth 

 waters at the thought of morsels more delicious even than " Sin under the 

 tongue," I am sure of an audience when I discourse of strawberries and 

 their kindred fruits. If apples led to the loss of Paradise, the reader will 

 find described hereafter a list of fruits that will enable him to reconstruct 

 a bit of Eden, even if the " Fall and all our woe" have left him possessed 

 of merely a city yard. But land in the country, breezy hill-sides, moist, 

 sheltered valleys, sunny plains what opportunities for the divinest form 

 of alchemy are here afforded to hundreds of thousands ! 



13 



