but I intend that it shall be an expression of honest opinion. I do
not like "foxy grapes" nor foxy words about them.




CHAPTER II

THE FRUIT GARDEN


_Raison d'etre_

Small fruits, to people who live in the country, are like heaven--
objects of universal desire and very general neglect. Indeed, in a
land so peculiarly adapted to their cultivation, it is difficult to
account for this neglect if you admit the premise that Americans are
civilized and intellectual. It is the trait of a savage and inferior
race to devour .with immense gusto a delicious morsel, and then trust
to luck for another. People who would turn away from a dish of
"Monarch" strawberries, with their plump pink cheeks powdered with
sugar, or from a plate of melting raspberries and cream, would be
regarded as so eccentric as to suggest an asylum; but the number of
professedly intelligent and moral folk who ignore the simple means of
enjoying the ambrosial viands daily, for weeks together, is so large
as to shake one's confidence in human nature. A well-maintained fruit
garden is a comparatively rare adjunct of even stylish and pretentious
homes. In June, of all months, in sultry July and August, there arises
from innumerable country breakfast tables the pungent odor of a meat
into which the devils went but out of which there is no proof they