FRUITS AND FRUIT TREES 
CHAPTER I. 
THE PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIES OF FRUIT. 
In our survey of the culture of fruits let us begin at the be- 
ginning. Gradual amelioration, and the skilful practice of the 
cultivator, have so filled our orchards and gardens with good 
fruits, that it is necessary now to cast a look back at the types 
from which these delicious products have sprung. 
In the tropical zone, amid the surprising luxuriance of vege- 
tation of that great natural hothouse, nature offers to man, almost 
without care, the most refreshing, the most delicious, and the 
most nutritive fruits. The Plantain and Banana, excellent 
either raw or cooked, bearing all the year, and producing upon 
a rood of ground the sustenance of a family; the refreshing 
Guava and Sapodilla; the nutritious Bread-fruit; such are the 
natural fruit trees of those glowing climates. Indolently 
seated under their shade, and finding a refreshing coolness both 
from their ever-verdant canopy of leaves, and their juicy fruits, 
it is not here that we must look for the patient and skilful cul- 
tivator. 
But, in the temperate climates, nature wears a harsher and 
sterner aspect. Plains bounded by rocky hills, visited not only 
by genial warmth and sunshine, but by cold winds and seasons 
of ice and snow ; these are accompanied by sturdy forests, 
whose outskirts are sprinkled with crabs and wild cherries, and 
festooned with the clambering branches of the wild grape. 
These native fruits, which at first offer so little to the eye, or 
the palate, are nevertheless the types of our garden varieties. 
Destined in these climates to a perpetual struggle with nature, 
it is here that we find man ameliorating and transforming her. 
Transplanted into a warmer aspect, stimulated by a richer 
soil, reared from selected seeds, carefully pruned, sheltered and 
watched, by slow degrees the sour and bitter crab expands into 
a Golden Pippin, the wild pear loses its thorns and becomes a 
Bergamotte or a Beurre, the Almond is deprived of its bitterness, 
and the dry and flavorless Peach is at length a tempting and 
delicious fruit. It is thus only in the face of obstacles, in a 
climate where nature is not prodigal of perfections, and in the 
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