demand for literature relating to out-of-door life, horticultural
journals, like the fruits of which they treat, flourishing in regions
new and remote, are proof of this. The business of supplying fruit-
trees, plants, and even flowers, is becoming a vast industry. I have
been informed that one enterprising firm annually spends thousands in
advertising roses only.

But while we welcome the evidences that so many are ceasing to be
bucolic heathen, much observation has shown that the need of further
enlightenment is large indeed. It is depressing to think of the number
of homes about which fruits are conspicuous only by their absence--
homes of every class, from the laborer's cottage and pioneer's cabin
to the suburban palace. Living without books and pictures is only a
little worse than living in the country without fruits and flowers. We
must respect to some extent the old ascetics, who, in obedience to
mistaken ideas of duty, deprived themselves of the good things God
provided, even while we recognize the stupidity of such a course.
Little children are rarely so lacking in sense as to try to please
their father by contemptuously turning away from his best gifts, or by
treating them with indifference. Why do millions live in the country,
year after year, raising weeds and brambles, or a few coarse
vegetables, when the choicest fruits would grow almost as readily?
They can plead no perverted sense of duty.

It is a question hard to answer. Some, perhaps, have the delusion that
fine small fruits are as difficult to raise as orchids. They class
them with hot-house grapes. Others think they need so little attention
that they can stick a few plants in hard, poor ground and leave them
to their fate. One might as well try to raise canary-birds and kittens
together as strawberries and weeds. There is a large class who believe