FRUITS AND FRUIT-TREES. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIES OF FRUIT. 



IN our survey of the culture of fruits let us begin at the beginning. 

 Gradual amelioration, and the skilful practice of the cultivator, have so 

 filled our orchards and gardens with good fruits, that it is necessary now 

 to cast a look back at the types from which these delicious products have 

 sprung. 



In the tropical zone, amid the surprising luxuriance of vegetation of 

 that great natural hot-house, nature offers to man, almost without care, the 

 most refreshing, the most delicious, and the most nutritive fruits. The 

 Plantain and Banana, excellent either raw or cooked, bearing all the 

 year, and producing upon a rood of ground the sustenance of a family ; 

 the refreshing Guava and Sapodilla ; the nutritious Bread-fruit ; such 

 are the natural fruit-trees of those glowing climates. Indolently seated 

 under their shade, and finding a refreshing coolness both from their ever- 

 verdant canopy of leaves, and their juicy fruits, it is not here that we 

 must look for the patient and skilful cultivator. 



But, in the temperate climates, nature wears a harsher and sterner 

 aspect. Plains bounded by rocky hills, visited not only by genial warmth 

 and sunshine, but by cold winds and seasons of ice and snow ; these are 

 accompanied by sturdy forests, whose outskirts are sprinkled with crabs 

 and wild cherries, and festooned with the clambering branches of the 

 wild grape. These native fruits, which at first offer so little to the eye 

 or the palate, are nevertheless the types of our garden varieties. Des- 

 tined in these climates to a perpetual struggle with nature, it is here 

 that we find man ameliorating and transforming her. 



Transplanted into a warmer aspect, stimulated by a richer soil, reared 

 from selected seeds, carefully pruned, sheltered, and watched, by slow 

 degrees the sour and bitter crab expands into a Golden Pippin, the wild 

 pear loses its thorns and becomes a Bergamotte or a Beurre, the Almond 

 is deprived of its bitterness, and the dry and flavorless Peach is at length 

 a tempting and delicious fruit. It is thus only, in the face of obstacles, 

 in a climate where nature is not prodigal of perfections, and in the midst 

 of thorns and sloes, that MAN, THE GARDENER, arises and forces nature to 

 yield to his art. 



These improved sorts of fruit, which man everywhere causes to share 

 his civilization, bear, almost equally with himself, the impress of an exist- 



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