28 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



to sneer at the simple tastes of the latter. There is a 

 sturdy professional pride that enters into this, for 

 something. I have before now been thrown into the 

 company of breeders of blooded stock who would not 

 so much as notice the best native animals no matter 

 how tenderly cared for, or how assiduously combed 

 down ; and yet a good dish of cream most people 

 relish, even if the name of the cow is not written in 

 the Herd-books. Of course that nice discrimination 

 of tastes which enables a man to detect the minute 

 shades of difference in flavors, is a thing of growth 

 and long culture, and every man is inclined to respect 

 what has cost him long culture. But if I smack my 

 lips over the old Hovey, or a mahogany colored Wil- 

 son, and stick by them, I do not know that the zeal- 

 ous Pomologist has a right to condemn me utterly, 

 because I do not root up my strawberry patches and 

 plant Russell's Prolific, or the Jucunda in their place. 

 It is even doubtful if extreme cultivation of taste does 

 not do away with a great deal of that hearty gusto 

 with which most men enjoy good fruit. The man 

 who is all the summer through turning some little 

 tid-bit of flavor upon the tip of his tongue, and going 

 off into fits of rumination upon the possible difference 

 of flavor between a Crimson-Cone when watered from 

 an oak tub, and a Crimson-Cone when watered from 

 a chestnut tub, seems to me in a fair way of losing all 



