78 UNDER THE OPEN SKY 



God set the plan for the fruit-trees and 

 we have carried it out. Rarely has man 

 worked better along lines laid down by the 

 Creator. The original trees were doubt- 

 less hardier, but that was because they had 

 to take care of themselves. We have re- 

 lieved them of that necessity, and the new 

 strain has responded to our kindness and 

 rewarded most magnificently man's skilful 

 endeavor. So it comes that every little 

 country home is glorified at each return of 

 spring by the gorgeous beauty of the blos- 

 soming trees. The peaches^how the sunny 

 home from which they came in the tender 

 rose of their rounded corollas. The cherries 

 and the plums try to make up by the pro- 

 fusion of their bloom and the purity of their 

 whiteness for their lack of the warm softness 

 of the peach-blossom. Last of all, the 

 apples surpass both of their predecessors 

 by putting the purity of the cherry on the 

 inside of the blossom and the warmth of the 

 peach on the swelling outside, and letting 

 each suffuse into the other until no one is 

 surprised when the botanist tells us that all 



