Known by their fruit

A few years ago, I planted a small area of Conference pears. The best fruit are packed for the retail trade while small or misshapen pears are crushed to make pear juice. However, like many things in life, growing pears in our climate is a bit unpredictable and unfortunately a late frost this spring killed much of the pear blossom, resulting in a low yield.

Conference pears require a different management than apples, and because they have a vigorous growth, they have to be planted very closely together to control their progress. Mine are planted in four-metre-wide rows on a trellis system, half a metre spacing between trees, which is equivalent to 2,000 trees per acre.

As with any commercial fruit orchard, new trees are planted annually to replace any dead, unproductive, or diseased ones, and in my own orchard I have a selection of apple varieties, pears, plums and cherries. While new trees will always be labelled when they arrive from the nursery, unfortunately labels sometimes fall off, or fade, and it is impossible to distinguish between varieties until we see their fruit.

This reminds me of a story in the New Testament. When the Lord Jesus spoke about spiritual things, He often used analogies from fruit growing because He knew that many of those listening to Him were familiar with farming all types of crops and fruit. At the time of His ministry, there were many spiritual teachers promoting a false teaching, so the clear advice that Jesus gave - to distinguish between good and bad - was given in this agricultural analogy, “‘Each tree is recognised by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers’” (Luke 6:44).

Likewise, in Matthew 7:16-20 Jesus also tells us, “‘By their fruit you will recognise them…every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit…Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them.’”

When it comes to maintaining pear trees, pruning is very important and during the winter months any diseased, or misshapen branches, have to be cut out. Additional pruning is done in July to reduce vigorous branches, or to cut out any canker. However, a tree has to be discarded if the main central stem is diseased, or damaged, as the side branches will not produce good fruit.

In John’s gospel Jesus uses another analogy to let us know what following Him should entail, “‘Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me’” (John 15:4).

While it is impossible for a branch to bear grapes if it isn’t connected to the vine, or a pear branch to produce good fruit unless it is connected to the central stem, a follower of Christ can’t do good for God and His kingdom, if they do not consciously connect with, and abide in Jesus, trusting in Him as their personal Saviour and Lord.

From experience, I know that even in the most carefully managed orchards, there are often trees which produce low quality fruit, or no fruit at all, and they have to be removed. Jesus spoke of this situation in the spiritual sense when He said, “‘every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire’” (Matthew 3:10.) That’s a stark challenge to us all.

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David is married to Pauline and they have four grown up children. Since retiring from the Grass Breeding Department at AFBI Loughgall, he grows Bramley apples which he supplies to local processors and packers. David is a member of Loughgall Presbyterian Church.

If you would like to talk to someone about any of the issues raised in this article, please email Rev Kenny Hanna, PCI’s Rural Chaplain at [email protected] or call him on 07938 488 372.