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Our ramble among the small fruits is over. To such readers as have not grown weary and left my company long since, I will say but few words in parting.
In the preceding pages I have tried to take from our practical and often laborious calling its dull, commonplace, and prosaic aspects. It should be our constant aim to lift life above mere plodding drudgery. It is our great good fortune to co-work with Nature, and usually among her loveliest scenes. Is it not well to "look up to the hills" occasionally, from whence may come "help" toward a truer, larger manhood, and then, instead of going home to the heavy, indigestible supper too often spread for those who are weary and feverish from the long, hot day, would it not be better to gather some sprays of the fruit whose mild subacid is just what the material man requires in mid-summer sultriness? The horticulturist may thrive if he will, in body and soul; for Nature, at each season, furnishes just such supplies as are best adapted to his need. She will develop every good quality he possesses, especially his patience.
As we have passed from one fruit to another, I have expressed my own views frankly; at the same time, I think the reader will remember that I have taken no little pains to give the opinions of others. Dogmatism in pomology is as objectionable as in theology. I shall be glad to have my errors pointed out, and will hasten to correct them.
As a part of this book appeared as a serial in "Scribner's Magazine," I was encouraged by words of approval from many of the best horticultural authorities. I shall not deny that I was very glad to receive such favorable opinions, for I had much and just doubt of my ability to satisfy those who have made these subjects a lifelong study, and to whom, in fact, I am largely indebted for the little I do know. Still more am I pleased by assurances that I have turned the thoughts of many toward the garden—a place that is naturally, and, I think, correctly, associated with man's primal and happiest condition. We must recognize, however, the sad change in the gardening as well as gardeners of our degenerate world. In worm and insect, blight and mildew, in heat, frost, drought and storm, in weeds so innumerable that we are tempted to believe that Nature has a leaning toward total depravity, we have much to contend with; and in the ignorant, careless, and often dishonest laborer, who slashes away at random, we find our chief obstacle to success. In spite of all these drawbacks, the work of the garden is the play and pleasure that never palls, and which the oldest and wisest never outgrow. I have delayed my departure too long, and, since I cannot place a basket of President Wilder Strawberries on the tables of my readers, I will leave with them the best possible substitute, the exquisite poem of H. H.:
O marvel, fruit of fruits, I pause
To reckon thee. I ask what cause
Set free so much of red from heats
At core of earth, and mixed such sweets
With sour and spice; what was that strength
Which, out of darkness, length by length,
Spun all thy shining threads of vine,
Netting the fields in bond as thine;
I see thy tendrils drink by sips
From grass and clover's smiling lips;
I hear thy roots dig down for wells,
Tapping the meadow's hidden cells;
Whole generations of green things,
Descended from long lines of springs,
I see make room for thee to bide,
A quite comrade by their side;
I see the creeping peoples go
Mysterious journeys to and fro;
Treading to right and left of thee,
Doing thee homage wonderingly.
I see the wild bees as they fare
Thy cups of honey drink, but spare;
I mark thee bathe, and bathe again,
In sweet, uncalendared spring rain.
I watch how all May has of sun
Makes haste to have thy ripeness done,
While all her nights let dews escape
To set and cool thy perfect shape.
Ah, fruit of fruits, no more I pause
To dream and seek thy hidden laws!
I stretch my hand, and dare to taste
In instant of delicious waste
On single feast, all things that went
To make the empire thou hast spent.