WILD FRUITS OF FARM 17 
them. Cranberries and some blueberries demand bog con- 
ditions which strawberries and apples will not endure. 
The wild fruits in a state of nature, have their enemies also, 
which are ever with them when cultivated. The fruit-fly of 
the cherry, the codling moth of the apple, the plum-curculio 
and all the other insect pests of the fruit garden, have merely 
moved into the garden from the wildwood. And they 
flourish equally in the wildwood still. When, for example, 
an orchardist has rid his trees of codling moths, a fresh stock 
soon arrives from the unnoticed wild apples of the adjacent 
woods, and infests his trees again. 
So, we must go back to nature to find the sources of our 
benefits and of their attendant ills. 
The wild fruits of the farm all grow in out-of-the way places 
that escape the plow. They grow in the fence-row, by the 
brookside, on the stony slope. If in the forest, they grow 
only in the openings or in the edges; for fruit trees do not 
grow so tall as the trees of the forest cover, and cannot endure 
much shading. The bush fruits especially are wont to spring 
up in thefence-row, where birds have perched and have 
dropped seeds from ripe fruit they have eaten. They area 
lusty lot of berry-bearing shrubs and vines that tend to form 
thickets, and when cut down by the tidy farmer, they spring 
up again with cheerful promptness from uninjured roots. In 
a few years they are in bearing again. The neglected fence- 
row is, therefore, one of the best places to search for the lesser 
wild fruits. 
Of nature’s fruits there is endless variety. They grow on 
tree, shrub, herb and vine. They are large and small, sweet 
and sour, pleasant and bitter, wholesome and poisonous. 
They mellow in the sun like apples, or swéeten with the frosts 
like persimmons. They hang exposed like plums, or are 
hidden in husks like ground-cherries. The edible ones that 
remain growing wild in the autumn are a rather poor lot of 
