THE HOME FRUIT GARDEN 



count for far more in the fruit garden than among the 

 flowers, and this fact adds largely to the art of fruit 

 cultivation, and invests its devotees with an enthusiasm 

 that those outside the pale find difficult to appreciate. 



Fruit-growers must necessarily be philosophers if not 

 fatalists; in fact, they might with reason appropriate 

 the significant motto, " Che sara sara," for their best- 

 laid schemes may " gang aft agley " on the untimely 

 interference of the clerk of the weather. The exquisite 

 show of blossom on Apple and Pear, Plum and Cherry, 

 that makes the orchard in spring one vast garden of 

 flowers, may delight the heart of the inexperienced and 

 conjure up for him visions of a bountiful harvest of 

 luscious fruits ; but the practised fruit-grower never 

 counts his chickens before they are hatched, or, in other 

 words, does not attempt to estimate his crop before the 

 fruits are " set." He knows only too well that the most 

 lavish display of blossom does not necessarily mean a 

 heavy yield of fruit. Pear trees are perhaps the most 

 tantalising of all in this connection. Their branches are 

 commonly laden with blossom in April, yet when summer 

 comes round there is often but a meagre crop of fruit. 



It is sometimes difficult to know why the fruits form 

 sparsely. Apparently the weather is propitious ; there 

 are none of those late frosts so greatly dreaded by the 

 fruit-grower, and everything seems in favour of a record 

 " set " of fruit. But alas ! the display of blossom seems 

 only to have been to delight the gardener's eye, for it 



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