`But,' asked Ernest, `where did the slips of good fruit come from, if none grow without grafting?'
`From foreign countries,' 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 of attention being bestowed upon them; while in England and Germany, and even in France, these same trees require the utmost exertion of horticultural skills to make them bring forth any fruit whatever.
`Thus, when the Romans invaded England they found nothing in the way of fruit trees but the crab-apple, nut bushes, and bramble bushes, but by grafting on these, fine apples, filberts, and raspberries were produced, and it was the same in our own dear Switzerland--all our fruit trees were imported.'
`Were cherries, father? May we not even call cherries Swiss? I always thought they grew nowhere else.'
`I am afraid we cannot even claim cherries as our own, not even the name of them; they are called cherries from Cerasus, a state of Pontus, in Asia, whence they were brought to Europe by Lucullus, a Roman general, about seventy years before Christ.
`Hazelnuts also come from Pontus; walnuts, again, came originally from Persia. As for grapes, they are of the greatest antiquity. We hear, if you remember, of Noah cultivating vines, and they have been brought from one place to another until they now are to be found in most parts of the civilized world.'
`Do you think all these trees will grow?' asked Fritz, as we crossed Jackal River and entered our plantation at Tentholm. `Here are lemons, pomegranates, pistachio nuts, and mulberries.'
`I have little doubt of it,' I replied, `we are evidently within the tropics, where such trees as these are sure to flourish.
`These pines, now, come from France, Spain, and Italy; the olives from Armenia and Palestine; the figs originally from the island of Chios; the preaches and apricots from Persia; plums from Damascus in Syria, and the pears of all sorts from Greece.
`However, if our countries have not been blessed in the same way with fruit, we have been given wisdom and skill, which has enabled us to import and cultivate the trees of other lands.'
