The Affection for the Work 



13 



ment of any one of these industries, we must remember that 

 the starting-point is the seed, and that the horticulturist 

 must ever renew his effort to get back to the plant. This 

 effort is not to be conceived as an impersonal task yielding 

 results for commerce and science, but as an ardent affection. 



This affection runs not only to the growing of the plants 

 and to the joy of gardening, but also to the appreciation 

 of the good quality that one gets directly from fresh 

 vegetables of merit. It is good to know the plants on 

 which these products grow. As millions of people do not 

 have gardens, so are they unaware of the low quality of 

 much of the commercial produce as compared with things 

 well gTown in due season. Most persons, depending on 

 the market, do not know what a superlative watermelon 

 is like. Even such apparently indestructible things as 

 cucumbers have a crispness and delicacy when taken 

 directly from the vine at proper maturity that are lost to 

 the store-window supply. Every vegetable naturally loses 

 something of itself in the process from field to consumer. 

 Wlien to this is added the depreciation by storage, careless 

 exposure and rough handling, one cannot expect to receive 

 the full odor and the characteristic delicacies that belong 

 to the product in nature. We must also remember the 

 long distances over which much of the produce must be 

 transported, and the necessity to pick the produce before 

 it is really fit, to meet the popular desire to have vegetables 

 out of season and when we ought not to want them. There 

 is a time and place for everything, vegetables with the rest. 

 Modern methods of marketing, storing and handling have 

 facilitated transactions, and they have also done very much 

 to safeguard the produce itself and to deliver it to the cus- 



