Fruitlands

“ The crops at Fruitlands underwent many vicissitudes. No sooner did a crop show some sort of promise than they turned it back into the earth again, in order to enrich the soil, they said. This method did not tend to fill the winter storehouse with the needed vegetables, and a faint suggestion of disillusionment began to creep into the perfect harmony of the consociate family as autumn approached. Early in September Mr. Alcott and Charles Lane went on a trip in search of recruits. They went to Providence and had an evening’s conversation with Mrs. ”

“ But Palmer had seen enough of the Transcendentalists to make him realize the advantages of running his own Community, which he did for upwards of twenty years in a strange, haphazard sort of fashion. He had no name for it, and he never sought recruits, but he never closed his door to the wayfarer, and two large iron pots, one full of baked beans, and the other full of potatoes, stood always ready for the poor and hungry. And so in a humble way, Joseph and Nancy Palmer carried out some of the ideals started at Fruitlands by the Transcendentalists. ”

“ The governor stood up and came to the open French windows that faced the fields of sugar-cane. In the near distance were clumps of fruit trees, of hedges of lime and flowering shrubs, rows of orange trees, mangoes, red and purple, forbidden-fruit and grapefruit, the large scarlet fruit of the acqui, the avocado-pear, the feathering bamboo, and the Jack-fruit tree, with its enormous fruit like pumpkins. Parrots were chattering in the acacia and in the Otaheite plum tree, with its bright pink blossoms like tassels, and flanking the negro huts by the river were bowers of grenadilla fruit. ”

“ A great variety of fruits are grown in the colony, amongst which may be mentioned the grape, apple, orange, lemon, pear, fig, peach, apricot, gooseberry, Cape gooseberry, plum, loquat, banana, quince, strawberry, melon, mulberry, currants, cherries, almond, and olives. All these are capable of being produced in large quantities, particularly grapes, oranges, apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, &c. Large areas of the Company's lands are highly suitable for fruit-growing, and one day fruit-preserving will be a profitable industry. ”

“ The aspect for the fruit garden should, if possible, front the south, south-east, or south-west, in a northerly climate. In the Middle and Southern States the exposure is of less consequence. Currants, gooseberries, raspberries, &c., should, for their most productive bearing, and the highest quality of their fruits, be set at least four feet apart, in the rows, and the rows six feet distant from each other, that there may be abundant room to cultivate them with the plow, and kept clean of weeds and grass. The quince, peach, apricot, nectarine, and plum should be 16 feet apart each way. ”

“ On some farms large quantities of fruit are grown—such as gooseberries, currants, plums, and damsons. Most have enough for their own use; some sell a considerable amount. Outside the garden is the orchard. Some of these orchards are very extensive, even in districts where cider is not the ordinary beverage, and in a good apple year the sale of the apples forms an important item in the peculiar emoluments of the farmer's wife. There are, of course, many districts in which the soil is not adapted to the apple, but as a rule the orchard is an adjunct of the garden. ”

“ When we know that the favorite tree stands directly in front of the windows of a much-used room and overhangs a frequented garden path, the preference becomes more marked. But robins, grosbeaks, purple finches, and the whole berry-eating tribe agree to choose one and neglect the other, and even the spring migrants will leave the gay red tassels of fruit still swinging on one tree, to scratch over the leaves and eat the fallen berries that lie beneath the other. ”

“ Much of it is extremely fertile; rich soil abounding in meadows and pastures, with such varied products as might make of this portion of the continent a veritable garden or orchard. Our eyes rest on groves of orange-trees, clustering with golden fruit, on fields of waving sugar-cane of immense growth, on vineyards and tobacco fields, on cotton and hemp plantations. ”

“ This mingling, in the most friendly manner, of the old forest trees with familiar fruit trees introduced from distant lands and laden with golden fruit, is a most beautiful sight. The fruit trees stand their ground even against the most aggressive shrubs, and it is often no easy matter to reach the ripe hiding fruit in the dense network of branches thrown around and between the branches of the imprisoned tree. What a blessing these acid fruits are to the natives, sweltering under the rays of the tropic sun! ”

“ On either hand, sometimes with abrupt juttings of big rocks, sometimes in tiny fertile plateaus, sometimes on gentle slopes, there grew every fruit tree that loves to flourish in the soil and sun of California—loquats and figs, oranges and lemons, plums and peaches, pears and nectarines, dates and grapefruit—only a tree or two of each, and between and beneath them tiny cultivated beds of vegetables. ”

“ We have now growing in the colony, plants of nearly every kind of European fruit, tree, and shrub, all of which appear to thrive well, as do such of the tropical fruits as have had a fair trial, as the date and banana. Of the fig and the vine, the fruit appear to be as good as that grown in any part of the world. ”

“ So long as I saw one or two kinds of berries in my walks whose names I did not know, the proportion of the unknown seemed indefinitely, if not infinitely, great. Famous fruits imported from the East or South and sold in our markets, as oranges, lemons, pineapples, and bananas, do not concern me so much as many an unnoticed wild berry, whose beauty annually lends a new charm to some wild walk, or which I have found to be palatable to an outdoor taste. The tropical fruits are for those who dwell within the tropics. Their fairest and sweetest parts cannot be exported nor imported. ”

“ A banana garden in full bearing is a very pretty sight, the thousands of plants, each with their one or more bunches of fruit, as, where there are several stems it is not at all uncommon to find two or more bunches of fruit in different states of development on the same plant, forming a mass of vegetation that must be seen to be appreciated. This is the case even with dwarf-growing kinds, but with strong-growing varieties, such as the Lady's Finger, the growth is so excessive that the wonder is, how the soil can support it. ”

“ Through the irrigation water always at the command of the horticulturist, our lands are being transformed into beautiful orchards, vineyards and meadows. The peach, the prune, the apricot, the pear and the raisin-grape are made to flourish, and the olive to produce its valuable oil, the orange and the lemon their golden fruit. The colonies already established are situated in the thermal belt of the Sierra, in the finest citrus region of the State, in a district equal to the best anywhere, and in a territory remarkable for its earliness and productiveness. ”

“ No doubt, fruit growing is fast becoming an acknowledged industry in the colonies, so our young farmer must bear it in mind when planting. It will be best to have the fruit trees near or round his house, so when he has decided where he intends to build he can begin and plant them about that portion of his land, always, of course, arranging them in order and line. He will be able to beg a few trees from his neighbours. Mulberries as a rule are very plentiful, also peach, orange, and in Queensland quavas, mangos, &c., &c. ”

“ The wild fruit and nut trees, the Canada plum, the cherries, the many species of walnut, the butternut, the hazel, yield very little, frequently nothing, so long as they grow in the woods; and it is only when the trees around them are cut down, or when they grow in pastures, that they become productive. The berries, too—the strawberry, the blackberry, the raspberry, the whortleberry, scarcely bear fruit at all except in cleared ground.
The rank forests of the tropics are as unproductive of human aliment as the less luxuriant woods of the temperate zone. ”

“ Apart altogether from market gardening and commercial fruit-growing, it must be borne in mind that an enormous business is done in the raising of young fruit-trees every year. Hundreds of thousands of apples, pears, plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines and apricots are budded or grafted each year on suitable stocks. They are trained in various ways, and are usually fit for sale the third year. These young trees replace old ones in private and commercial gardens, and are also used to establish new plantations in different parts of the kingdom. ”

“ I replied; “it is only in the cold climate of our part of the world that they require this grafting; in many parts of the world in more southern latitudes than ours, the most luscious fruit trees are indigenous to the soil, and flourish and bear sweet wholesome fruit, without the slightest care or attention being bestowed upon them; while in England and Germany, and even in France, these same trees require the utmost exertion of horticultural skill to make them bring forth any fruit whatever. ”

“ The fruit grows close to the stalk, completely surrounding it, and forming a long spike of the richest crimson berries. I have gathered branches a foot in length, closely covered with the beautiful looking fruit, and have regretted that it was so insipid in its flavour as to make it uneatable. On the banks of creeks and in rich ground, it grows most luxuriantly, one root sending up twenty or thirty branches, drooping with the weight of their magnificent burden. ”

“ Where the conditions are favourable, especially in East and Mid Kent, there is a considerable acreage of fruit land attached to each farm, planted with cherry, apple, pear, plum and damson trees, and with bush fruits, or soft fruits as they are sometimes called, including gooseberries, currants, raspberries, either with or without standard trees, and strawberries, and filberts and cob-nuts in Mid Kent. ”

“ The special fruit of this province, as already intimated, is oranges, and it is safe to say that none produced elsewhere can excel them. They are not picked until they are thoroughly ripe, and are therefore too delicate, in their prime condition, to sustain transportation to any considerable distance. Those sold in our northern cities are picked in a green condition and ripened off the trees, a process which does not injure some fruits, but which detracts very materially from the orange and the pineapple. ”

“ When the company darts again out of the jungle, each with a berry in its bill and each shrilly exulting, many a load is dropped by the way, and many another falls to mother earth in the act of feeding the clamorous young. Berries and seeds having no means of self-transportation are thus borne far from parent trees to vegetate in sweet unencumbered soil. ”

“ Wild bananas grew everywhere, clinging to the sides of the gorges, and, overborne by their great bunches of ripe fruit, falling across the trail and blocking the way. And over the forest surged a sea of green life, the climbers of a thousand varieties, some that floated airily, in lacelike filaments, from the tallest branches others that coiled and wound about the trees like huge serpents ”

“ Except in favoured localities, general fruit-growing in the northern areas cannot be relied on, and to be successful it requires certain favourable situations. Nevertheless, there is a very considerable area, in every respect suitable for the profitable growth and production of certain fruits, more especially those of a semi-tropical character, such as vines, oranges, lemons, peaches, pears, almonds, while for the growth of the fig and olive the area could be extended to a much larger degree. ”

“ To obtain the fruit, the native fastens a strip of palm-leaves round his instep, thus binding his feet together, to enable him to climb the slippery trunk, which he does with wonderful rapidity, to obtain the fruit at its summit.
Wherever a native village exists, there are seen growing in clusters, beautiful ornaments beside the palm-thatched huts, the tall and elegant pupunha, or peach palm—Guilielma speciosa—to the height of sixty feet, and often perfectly straight. A single bunch of the fruit weighs as much as a man can carry, and on each tree several are borne. ”

“ At a certain season of the year, when the fruit of the hundred groves of the valley has reached its maturity, and hangs in golden spheres from every branch, the islanders assemble in harvest groups, and garner in the abundance which surrounds them.
The trees are stripped of their nodding burdens, which, easily freed from the rind and core, are gathered together in capacious wooden vessels, where the pulpy fruit is soon worked by a stone pestle, vigorously applied, into a blended mass of a doughy consistency, called by the natives ‘Tutao’. ”

“ The general remarks I have given respecting our fruit soils apply with equal force to those best adapted for citrus culture—viz., they must possess perfect drainage, and be of a friable nature. We are growing most of the best varieties of citrus fruit, the original trees from which they are now being propagated having been introduced into the State from the most celebrated citrus-producing districts in the world, and, as stated and shown by the accompanying illustrations, they are all doing well. ”

“ Fruit-trees, the peach, the apple, the plum, &c. do very well when planted on the gently rising grounds, where the hickory or the oak had once stood. Fruit-trees, such as have been named, thrive very well also on the dry prairies. On the eastern side of the Allegany [120] mountains there neither is, nor was there ever, any thing like these prairies and barrens, if we except those found in the western part of New-York, in the Genesee country, and in the vicinity of the lakes in that quarter. ”