A PLEA FOR OUR SMALL FRUITS.
The farmers of Ontario seldom need to be urged to plant fruit trees, they are awake to their value both for home consumption, in the restricted sense of the producer’s household, and for market. They would not like to be without their apples especially, they are so very convenient and agreeable, can be used in so many ways, and contribute so largely to the comfort of the whole household. But the same can not be said of the small fruits. They have not yet been allowed to command the share of attention which their value deserves. The reason of this may in a large measure be found in the fact that they require attention after they have been planted, else they will yield no fruit. The apple tree, once established, is able largely to take care of itself, and in spite of entire neglect will yield considerable fruit. Not so with our small fruits. They require cultivation, to be kept free from weeds, regularly supplied with food, and to be properly trimmed. To do this was irksome, especially to one who did not know how to do it properly. Besides, it was small business in comparison with the more important crops of the farm, and the farmer felt that weightier interests demanded all his time and thought. There is some change in this respect for the better, but not all that there might be, not all that a true appreciation of our small fruits will yet produce. Those farmers who live near to the larger villages and towns have many of them discovered than an acre or so of small fruits is a very profitable acre, and well repays all the outlay for planting, tilling, and fertilizing. In a pecuniary point of view it pays. But we wish to call the attention of our readers to the fact that a supply of small fruits sufficient for the daily use of the farmer’s family during their season pays large, pays better than the village or city market, pays in many ways, pays far beyond any money value. Will it be necessary just here to stop and demonstrate that the acquisition of money is not the most important object in life? True, many live as though it was. To very many it doubtless is. There are men who will sacrifice health, and peace, and even life itself in the acquisition of money. But does it pay?
There is something of value in being able to supply one’s table with an agreeable variety. It is not conducive to our happiness or our health to be confined to a very limited number of articles of food. And He who best knows the wants of the physical man has furnished us with not only the staff of life, but with many other articles of food as adjuncts to that, which play no unimportant part in the perfect development and healthful continuance of our bodies. The wise man will seek to avail himself of these, and will find in our summer fruits a convenient and designed supply. As the summer heat begins, how grateful is the strawberry, with its mingled sweet and sour, counteracting the bilious tendencies of the season, and refreshing while it gratifies. Scarcely will it have passed away before the raspberry comes to continue the acid tonic with a change of flavors, thus enticing us in the use of a diet so healthful, until the ripening of the currants, and the gooseberries and the blackberries, and the grapes, as the season advances, gives ample scope for all our likes and dislikes, and an abundant supply of nutritious food and most agreeable medicine. For the sake of your health then, and that of your families, you will set apart some convenient spot for the cultivation of these small fruits, so that from the time that the strawberries ripen until the frosts come again, there will be fresh fruit upon the table every day.
Besides promoting the health of yourself and family, you will be adding largely to the enjoyment of all, and especially of the children. Who has not noticed the eager fondness of children for fruit? There is scarcely anything that delights them more. If then a few rods of ground devoted to small fruits will contribute not only to the health but to the happiness of your children, will it not pay? Will not anything pay that makes home more attractive to your children? Home, with its delightful memories, not the least of them the visions of delicious strawberries, and fragrant raspberries, and scarlet currants, and huge blackberries, and clusters of grapes.
But it pays also in an increased intelligence. One cannot cultivate his garden of small fruits without calling into exercise his intellectual faculties, and that in many ways. He will think in a different line from that which his mind traverses when he is engaged in the other and ordinary pursuits of the farm. The mind is enlarged by the contemplation of an enlarged variety of subjects. To grow these small fruits successfully one must study their requirements, not a difficult study by any means, but this exercise of the mind in another channel quickens its perceptions and awakens its activities. Besides, from the very nature of the operations, so different from the rougher and more muscular operations of the farm, there is brought into action the more delicate, shall we not say the more refined, qualities of thought and action, so that the man becomes more complete and symmetrical intellectually. And the children will grow up with enlarged knowledge and more refined tastes, just in proportion as the ordinary routine of farm life is varied and enlivened by the cultivation of those things which are usually embraced in the term horticulture.
On the score then of intelligence, of refinement, of health, of enjoyment, we commend to our farmers the cultivation of small fruits. Remember, we say cultivation, not the planting and leaving of them to take care of themselves; that is worse than not to plant at all, for it only ends in disappointment and disgust. But a garden of small fruits, well and lovingly tended, will repay a thousand fold all the care and thought bestowed upon it, in the increased health, happiness, intelligence and refinement of its possessors.