304 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
conspicuous by their absence. Our fathers thought that 
what was Jiot good enough for them w^as not good enough 
for other people. They turned deaf ears to the arguments 
that such varieties are robust, prolific, have fine color, 
and that the lowering of quality will not be noticed by 
the public in general. They knew better perhaps than the 
present generation of commercial fruit growers that 
nothing so tends to develop an extensive demand as a 
really fine article. For, to quote a favorite proverb, ‘‘The 
remembrance of quality lives long after the price has 
been forgotten.” The man who eats a poor or indifferent 
fruit will not be tempted soon to eat or buy again; 
whereas the man who eats a good one wants another 
specimen right away. Not until money making became 
the ruling passion in orcharding were low’^ quality fruits 
planted more extensively than for testing. 
Though Ben Davis apple and Elberta peach must bear , 
much responsibility for curbing public ai)petites for 
apples and peaches respectively, it seems safe to declare 
the no one fruit variety has played such havoc with pub¬ 
lic taste as has the Kieffer pear. The train loads of this 
w liited sepulchre of a fruit that for the past tw^enty years 
or more have flooded the large city markets have led the 
public to believe that pears in general are inferior fruits, 
fit only for canning, if that. Even the Bartlett has had its 
skirts soiled by the commercialism thatprompts California 
grow ers to gather it too green and ship it to Eastern mar¬ 
kets w here its consequently flat flavor belies it’s fine color 
and thus begins w bat the Kieffer finishes, the suppression 
of the public appetite. Thus the rising generation has 
had little chance to learn the truth that the pear is one of 
our richest, most luscious and delectable of fruits. 
To be sure the reaction against such bar sinister in- 
lluences has set in; men who have learned that the public 
is willing to eat really fine pears have begun to risk the 
difficulties of pear culture and to plant the choicer var¬ 
ieties, especially those that reach the market after the 
California Bartlett season has passed. The rising gen¬ 
eration may therefore fare better than the present one. 
While this commercial growing of line varieties speaks 
well for the prospective improvement of public taste, it 
is just as much to be desired that the family plantation 
should become as prominent as in days of yore. In such 
plantations should be at least, some of the choice varieties 
too difficult to grow or too sparsely productive to be con¬ 
sidered for commercial ventures. For they certainly min¬ 
ister to the esthetic admiration of color, form, fragrance,, 
and flavor, to say nothing of the pleasure of achievement 
in their production. But they exercise a still more subtle 
and important influence: they maintain and pass on to the 
rising generation high standards of excellence toward 
which commercial fruit ventures should always strive. 
It seems necessary to criticize adversely much of the 
present day literature and many of the specialists of the 
agricultural colleges and experiment stations. The great 
majority of the writings on fruit growing within the past 
tw enty-five or thirty years have too strongly emphasized 
commercial phases and given loo little heed to the stig¬ 
matized “amateur” features of fruit growing as if these 
were of an inferior instead of a potentially superior or¬ 
der. Amateurs are frequently connoisseurs. The writers 
seem to have dollars so close to their eyes that they see 
nothing else. As a matter of fact, the great authorities on 
fruit growing—Goxe, Prince, Barry, Thomas, Warder, 
Brinckle, Lyon, the two Dowuiings, and the galaxy of New 
Englanders, Kendrick, Wilder, Hovey, and the Mannings, 
to name only a few-—w ere all amateurs, yet what does 
not the Ainericaji public and especially the fruit grower 
owe them.'' 
They made fruit growing popular, not only in their 
day but for ours. They undertook and with their own 
private capital completed monumental w orks. Nowadays 
the Government and the individual states pay their suc¬ 
cessors and supply the funds to solve modern fruit prob¬ 
lems. Therefore, it behooves these successors to make 
broad instead of narrow specialists of themselves so they 
may sympathize with and encourage amateur as well as 
commercial fruit grow ing in their respective regions; for 
among the amateurs probably far more than among the 
commercal fruit grow ers are our authorities of the rising 
and future generations to be found. To determine the 
truth of this statement I suggest that my auditors ex¬ 
amine the list of present day investigators, teachers, and 
w riters on fruit growing to see how' few" are the sons of 
commercial, and how many of amateur fruit growers. 
The result I venture to say will be surprising. 
Let me hasten to say my audience is mistaken if it has 
concluded from any of my remarks that I advocate a re¬ 
turn to the hit-or-miss method of former days. I most 
certainly do not. I am a firm advocate of every method 
that makes for better fruit and more of it. What I have 
striven to emphasize is the importance of replacing the 
now" largely decrepit fruit plantations with new" ones of 
the choicest varieties to be handled according to the best 
modern methods. By the establishment of such planta¬ 
tions the standards of excellence will continue to rise or 
at least be maintained. Thereby w e may confidently look 
for improvement in the general standard of excellence; 
for as the floor of a valley is raised by the descent of soil 
from the mountains, so must the relinement of taste be 
improved by the increased popularity of high quality 
fruits. Fruit grow ing should, and thereby can, be made 
to minister, perhaps as favorably as music, art, and lit¬ 
erature, to the sensibilities of the family, the community, 
and the nation. Such environments as superior family 
fruit plantations afford seem to be the most favorable for 
the training of future fruit lovers and specialists among 
the rising generation. 
(To be continued) 
Knoxville, Tenn. Oct. 7tli, 1919. 
Enclosed find check for 1.50, 1 yrs. subscription.—^Would be 
like a ship without a rudder if we did not have it. 
Very truly yours, 
Marble City Nursery Co. 
