There was a group of farmers who grew oranges. They loved oranges because they were sweet and juicy. They could have grown apples or pears or some other sort of fruit but these farmers really loved oranges. There were some mandarin farmers nearby who sometimes appeared to have more fruit but these farmers still thought their oranges were bigger and better.

The farmers would gather together at different times. These farmers loved these gatherings because they got to talk about their oranges and their orange orchards. The orchard sizes varied according to the different farmers’ abilities, their skills and their understanding of how to develop their orchards. All the farmers wanted to be like the really big orange farmers. The big orange farmers were only big because they had big healthy trees that produced more fruit.

They would gather together to discuss these things with their nearest neighbouring orange farmers. There was a central orange farming product supply store which the farmers would use to get their farming equipment, pruning shears and the like. As with any store, some farmers liked going there and some didn’t. Some farmers would even get their supplies occasionally from the mandarin store or the apple store.

The orange store had a horticulturalist that used to be an orange farmer but some farmers didn’t always follow his advice because he was no longer farming. The horticulturalist decided to get some selected farmers to follow his advice and help the other farmers.

The really smart farmers took his advice and didn’t eat or sell all their fruit; they gathered their best, sweetest, juiciest fruit and took them to the greenhouse. The greenhouse was a place where the best oranges were planted into seedbeds to develop seedlings. The seedlings were nurtured very carefully to become trees that could be planted to develop new orchards. The smart farmers knew that this was the best way to get more good fruit, rather than just growing bigger trees.

Some of the big farmers still wanted to eat and sell all their oranges. Why should they go to all the effort of growing seedlings when they already had plenty of oranges?

(Author Unknown)