Fruiting

“ A fruit, on the other hand, lays itself open in every way to attract the attention of animals, and so to be dispersed by their aid, often amid the nourishing refuse of their meals. It is true that, with the fruit as with the nut, to digest the actual seed itself would be fatal to the life of the young plant. But fruits get over this difficulty by coating their seeds first with a hard, indigestible shell, and then with a soft, sweet, pulpy, and nutritious outer layer. ”

“ Fruit cannot be raised on this earth to taste as you imagine those pears would taste. For years you have this pleasure, unalloyed by any disenchanting reality. How you watch the tender twigs in spring, and the freshly forming bark, hovering about the healthy growing tree with your pruning-knife many a sunny morning! ”

“ Thrifty orchards of healthy well-grown fruit trees, including many varieties, are fast coming to maturity. Waving fields of golden grain, ripple in the simmering heat of a noon-day sun, or rustle and billow with each passing breeze, under the pale light of a harvest moon. Beautiful fields of cotton and corn, are an inspiration to behold. ”

“ The yearly harvest, the sower and his seed, the leaven in the loaf, the grain of mustard-seed, the lilies of the field, the action of fire, worms, moth, rust, bread, wine, and water, the mystery of the wind, unseen and yet felt—each one of these is shown to contain and exemplify a great and abiding truth. ”

“ Dig up the borders near the fruit trees, and never plant any large kind of flowers or vegetables upon them. Any thing planted or sown near the trees, has a tendency to impoverish the fruit.—May. If any fresh shoots have sprouted upon the fruit trees, in espaliers, or against walls, take them off. Train the proper ones to the walls or poles, at due distances, and in a regular manner. Look over vines, and stop every shoot that has fruit upon it, to three eyes beyond the fruit. ”

“ The fruit has grown heavy; it drops and falls to the ground,—it dies; but the seed still lives,—and therein lies the germ of a ‘possibility’ of some future plant, with its luxuriant foliage and its fruit. ”

“ But when the fruit of every plant is maturing, it draws to itself a large part of the prepared sap, which, when it has entered the kernel, is still farther elaborated, and made to produce the peculiar qualities of the fruit, whether corn or wheat, apple or pear. It is plain from this explanation that a plant stripped of its leaves is like a chemist robbed of his laboratory, or like a man without lungs. ”

“ In botany we have no such word as fruit. What you call fruit is in some trees the seed. In all species of nuts, for instance, the fruit and the seed are one and the same thing—that is to say, the kernel of the nut is both fruit and seed. ”

“ Similar contrivances are observed in respect to a multitude of other plants.
Some seeds, as those of apples, peaches, plums, pears, cherries, currants, &c., are covered up in a fleshy or pulpy substance, which we call fruit. Here a double purpose is answered. The seeds are nicely taken care of, while mankind, with many other creatures, are provided with an ample store of delicious food. But lest the seed should be destroyed before it is brought to maturity, the fruit is very sour or bitter, until the seeds are quite ripe. ”

“ We have in like sort such workmen as are not only excellent in grafting the natural fruits, but also in their artificial mixtures, whereby one tree bringeth forth sundry fruits, and one and the same fruit of divers colours and tastes, dallying as it were with nature and her course, as if her whole trade were perfectly known unto them: of hard fruits they will make tender, of sour sweet, of sweet yet more delicate, bereaving also some of their kernels, other of their cores, and finally enduing them with the savour of musk, amber, or sweet spices, at their pleasures. ”

“ THE FRUIT TREE. A FRUIT tree sprang up from a seed in the corner of a certain man’s field. It grew rapidly and put forth branches. Great was the man’s delight when he saw these bearing blossoms.
“Now I shall have fruit of my own,” he said.
Autumn came and the fruit appeared, but as it ripened, instead of growing round and rich and mellow, it grew knotted and hard and bitter to the taste.
“’Tis because it is young and the soil where it stands thin and poor,” the land-owner said.
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Then he loosened the ground around its roots and enriched and watered it, and afterward waited for spring. ”

“ They are sowing their seed in the daylight fair, They are sowing their seed in the noonday's glare, They are sowing their seed in the soft twilight, They are sowing their seed in the solemn night; What shall their harvest be? ”

“ Still more striking is the illustration of a stately bread-fruit tree, fair to look upon, with large glossy leaves and abundant fruit,—a tree which in the natural course of healthy life will, when full grown, send up from its roots strong shoots, which yield their first crop in the second or third year, so that ere long the patriarchal tree is the centre of a leafy fruit-bearing grove. ”

“ Fig. 796.—Three-celled capsule.
Fruit, in botany, is by no means limited to the juicy products of trees or plants which are so refreshing in the summer weather, and so acceptable in any form. In plant life the herb yielding seed produces a fruit equally with the orange or the apple. The fruit is the outcome of the varied processes of the plant. We may trace the plant from its tiny, sometimes very minute seed, through stem to flower and seed again. ”

“ I find it convenient in this volume, and wish I had thought of the expedient before, whenever I get into a difficulty, to leave the reader to work it out. He will perhaps, therefore, be so good as to define fruit for himself. Having defined it, he will find that the sentence about which I was alarmed above is, in the main, true, and that tented plants principally are herb yielding seed, while building plants give fruit. The berried shrubs of rock and wood, however dwarfed in stature, are true builders. The strawberry-plant is the only important exception—a tender Bedouin. ”

“ On taking up the fruit-trees, the roots should be preserved of a convenient length, in consequence of which they will incline to grow in a horizontal direction, and be more immediately influenced by the sun: their sap will become richer, and produce the sweetest and most beautiful fruit. ”

“ The husk breaks, the seed falls in the soil, it rains and the rain fertilises the seed, the sun shines and makes it grow, and when the tree has grown and again bears blossoms and fruit, this fruit is useful to man, is food and not poison to him. ”

“ Orchard fruits are conveniently divided into large and small fruits, the large fruits being represented by the apple, pear, peach, quince, etc., and the small fruit by the cherry and plum. Fruits were doubtless among the earliest foods of man, and this leads to another classification of fruits, namely, wild and cultivated. ”

“ In other words—trench, manure, hoe and water around your young tree, and patiently allow the young fruit to develop of its own juice from the root; your own task being, as the fruit forms, but to bring in all you can of air and sunshine upon it. It must, as every mother and nurse knows, be coaxed to realise itself, to develop, to grow from its individual root. ”

“ Of fruit trees the apple, pear, plum, cherry, medlar, pomegranate, fig, quince, as well as two kinds of vine, grow wild; oranges, sweet and bitter, and other Aurantiaceae thrive well in gardens and plantations. ”

“ Allow me to remind you that very much fruit is never picked; some gets nipped in the blossom; some gets worm-eaten and falls to the ground; some rots on the trees before it ripens; some, too slow in ripening, gets bitten by the early frosts of autumn; while some rich, rare, ripe apples hang unpicked, frozen and worthless on the leafless trees of winter! ”

“ When it begins to get a little warm in the spring you begin to plow, and when you cast in the seed you do not expect to reap on to-morrow; but you wait, and by and by the grain begins to shoot, and everythings [everything] looks beautiful and green, and when it commences to head out, you begin to talk about the harvest. ”

“ The Goddess of the Plentiful Harvest sits in the slope of an overflowing cornucopia; a sheaf of ripe wheat rests in her supporting arm; she is attended by a lad who can scarcely lift the weight of fruit he bears. ”

“ But fruit also literal: for what joy of vegetation is lacking to the man who every month in the year can look through his study-window on a green lawn, and have strawberries and cream for his breakfast,—who can sit down to this royal fruit, and at the same time to apricots, peaches, nectarines, blackberries, raspberries, melons, figs both yellow and purple, early apples, and grapes of three kinds? ”

“ So whenever a farmer's wife gave him an apple to eat he carefully saved every seed that lay hidden in the heart of the apple, and next day as he trudged along he would stoop down every now and then and plant a few of the seeds and then carefully cover them with the rich black soil of the prairie. ”

“ Melons.—The supply of air and water must be regulated by the state of the weather and the temperature of the bed. The plants sometimes show one or two fruit at an early period of their growth, which should be picked off, as they would prevent the swelling off of others. The vines, or shoots, after being frequently stopped, and when they have nearly filled the frame, or other allotted space, several fruit should be impregnated at one time. ”

“ A similar line of argument holds good with fruits; that a ripe strawberry or cherry is as pleasing to the eye as to the palate; that the gaily coloured fruit of the spindle-wood tree, and the scarlet berries of the holly, are beautiful objects,—will be admitted by every one. ”

“ This is the principal month for grafting all sorts of fruit-trees, transplanting all sorts of hardy herbs and flovers, make up hot-beds for cucumbers, melons, colliflowers, to come late, to Russia cabbage and tender flower seeds, as amaranths of all sorts, and garden-seed, marvil, of Pern, &c. ”

“ If you want nice, large, fine flavored fruit, prepare your soil before planting your trees and keep it prepared by manuring occasionally. It is unreasonable to expect to raise fruit from a tree when it is half or three quarters starved out, all for the want of nourishment. ”

“ Others, again, prefer the juicy flesh of fruit and know before we do when cherries are ripe or pears are mellow, so that when we come to gather in the harvest all that we find is merely what they have left. ”

“ Disregarding what we call fruits and looking at it from the plant’s point of view, a fruit is anything in which, or upon which, a seed is developed or ripened quite without regard as to whether it is edible by man or not. ”

“ Againe, the largenesse and goodnesse of fruite consists in the age of the tree: for as the tree increaseth, so the fruite increaseth in bignesse, beauty, taste, and firmnesse: and otherwise, as it decreaseth.
Transporting fruit by water. If you be to transport your fruit farre by water, then prouide some dry hogges-heads or barrells, and packe in your apples, one by one with your hand, that no empty place may be left, to occasion sogging ”

“ In the field we see the corn falls with the first hard frost, while the asters along the roadway hold their freshness and continue to blossom until early winter congeals the sap. Turn to the flower-garden, and we see many of our tender plants in the withered brownness of death, and by their side stands the Anterrhinum in the beauty of its pristine freshness, bearing its blossoms of every size from the minutest bud up to the full flower. ”

“ Fruit farming is divided between orchard fruits, with which vegetable farming is usually combined and those fruits which may be grown in fields on a large scale. In the one class are apples, pears, almonds, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, grapes, figs, quinces, pomegranates and mulberries, in addition to walnut, pistacia, the edible pine and rhubarb, which grow wild in the northern and eastern highlands. ”

“ During the growth of the tree, many slips had been planted, which were then in a flourishing state, so that in a very short time the vegetable fruit was cultivated extensively, and became a household necessity. ”

“ The tendency to fruitage may be met in different ways, a few of which will now be pointed out, and all planters are urged to observe and to practice some of these plans for reducing the exuberance of this kind of fruit. ”

“ I have watched them at work within six feet of my head, and to see the quick way they pass from branch to branch, and the pieces of what would be cherries falling to the ground, one wonders how it is possible for any fruit to come to maturity at all. ”

“ Harvest is a time of ripeness. Then the fruit and grain are fully developed, both in size and weight. Time has tempered the acid of the green fruit. It has been mellowed and softened by the rains and the heat of summer. ”

“ Before the fruit is ripe the spike is cut, and soon becomes fit for use. The part of the plant which is in the earth is a sort of large root, and from it there will be successively thirty or more shoots, each one containing its bunch of fruit. ”

“ The people knew of other plants that were useful for food, and the season for their ripening, and, believing that the fruit of this strange plant would ripen in its proper time, they arranged to guard and protect it carefully, awaiting with patience the time of its ripening and further revelation of its purpose. ”

“ Of the seed scattered by the early sowers, a grain found here and there a sheltering crevice, and struggled into life, bearing fruit that in the succession of years increased and multiplied until thousands were fed and strengthened by its harvest. ”

“ One unreal difficulty, or shadow of difficulty, remains in our having no entirely comprehensive [234] name for seed and seed-vessel together than that the botanists now use, 'fruit.' But practically, even now, people feel that they can't gather figs of thistles, and never speak of the fructification of a thistle, or of the fruit of a dandelion. ”