Help!!!!! Amber Waves and Fruited Plain

[Daxx]

OK -- DS has to list the geographical areas mentioned in America the Beautiful lyrics and he's perplexed by the Fruited Plain part.

He's written that "Amber waves of grain" refers to the Mid-West/GreatPlains/Interior Plains. We've got the "purple mountain magesties" part down w/the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains.

Does Fruited Plain refer to Coastal Plain? If so, why is it "fruited"? DS says all the fruit on the East Coast plain, listing peaches from GA, oranges/citrus from FL, cherries from DC, blueberries from Maine. Apples from Washington State and oranges/citrus from West Coast. But, there's nothing in his textbook to support this (or anything else).

We're supposed to use his textbook for the answers, but there's nothing to support the fruited plain part of the song. I've looked on-line and have seen the fruited plain as midwest/Great Plains/Interior Plains and as coastal plains, or just as one or the other.

Your take?

 

[golfgal]

I cheated and looked it up on the internet so give me detention

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
These are the 'actual' lyrics so I would say that given this the Purple Mountains would be the Rocky Mountains and the fruited plain would be the west coast.

I also found this that would support that:

The lyrics to this beautiful song were written by Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) an instructor at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, after an inspiring trip to the top of Pikes Peak, Colorado, in 1893. Her poem, America the Beautiful first appeared in print in The Congregationalist, a weekly journal, on July 4, 1895. Ms. Bates revised the lyrics in 1904 and again in 1913. In addition to those changes in the words, it is notable that the poem was not always sung to the tune presented on this website ("Materna," composed by Samuel A. Ward in 1882, nearly a decade before the poem was written). In fact, for two years after it was written it was sung to just about any popular or folk tune that would fit with the lyrics, with "Auld Lang Syne" being the most notable of those. The words were not published together with "Materna" until 1910, and even after that time, the tune to be used was challenged to some degree. For example, in 1926 the National Federation of Music Clubs held a contest to put the poem to new, reportedly "less somber," music, but no other entry was determined to be more acceptable. Before her death in 1929, Ms. Bates never indicated publicly which music she liked best, but it now appears likely that America the Beautiful will forever be associated with "Materna."

 

[Daxx]

Yeah, I'd agree w/you ... but in their book, they haven't gotten to the west coast yet. The text starts in the East (in NY State) and they end at the Rocky Mountains. We used Rocky Mountains and Appalachian Mountains for the "Purple Mountain Magesties" part as they've covered both. I am feeling that even if we're right about the West Coast being the "fruited plain", he'll get it marked wrong b/c they haven't covered that portion of the book yet. Answers are supposed to be in the portion they read.

No detention for you ... we looked it up, too, b/c the book gave us nothing. Matter of fact, it gave us v. little info. in whole!!! More digging for tiny bits than anything. Sadly, he's supposed to use his textbook to back up his answer ... and in the Great Plains/Interior Plains/MidWest portion, it really only mentions that there's a lot of land and farming industry. So, we used that ... naming wheat (among other things) as a crop that would give amber waves of grain. It ticks me off b/c there's nothing in the text that relates to fruited plains. You could almost use the same answer for fruited plains and amber waves of grain ... but the homework states that each represents a different area. There goes that plan -- blown right out of the water!!!!!

 

[WDWAurora]

I wasn't aware that the Rockies were purple, too....

 

[java]

You really can find anything on the internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains

here's the whole story
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_the_Beautiful

 

[Jenn Lynn]

fruit (frt)
n. pl. fruit or fruits
1.
a. The ripened ovary or ovaries of a seed-bearing plant, together with accessory parts, containing the seeds and occurring in a wide variety of forms.
b. An edible, usually sweet and fleshy form of such a structure.
c. A part or an amount of such a plant product, served as food: fruit for dessert.
2. The fertile, often spore-bearing structure of a plant that does not bear seeds.
3. A plant crop or product: the fruits of the earth.
4. Result; outcome: the fruit of their labor.
5. Offspring; progeny.


What if fruited means something like #3? Lots of corn, beans, wheat, etc. in the plains of the midwest.

ETA-Sorry, didn't see your second post.

 

[goofy!]

For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

Our kids were taught in their Colorado schools that the Purple Mountains were the Rockies and the fruited plains were the vast grass plains that butt up to the Rockies.

For those of you who haven't been here, the plains are pretty flat and then the Rockies rise out of them pretty suddenly. It is pretty majestic."

 

[barkley]

let your ds know that we have amber waves of grain here in washington too (tons of wheat fields in my neck of the woods)! in fact i can see them from my back yard. i never realized how much they do resemble ocean waves until we moved here and i watched the ebbs and swells of the grain as the winds blew.

 

[cccm]

Wine Country on the West Coast??? Grapes are fruit. You could really make many arguments for various areas of the country for Fruited Plain.

 

[Buckalew11]

Hey, Daxx, Just write the teacher a note and tell her it was a "stupid" assignment!

 

[Daxx]

Hey, Daxx, Just write the teacher a note and tell her it was a "stupid" assignment!

He decided to stick w/listing the coastal plains as "fruited" b/c of the crops from FL, GA, DC, etc. as mentioned earlier. He also stated that the big cities and businesses of the coastal plain were fruitful. It was the photo of NYC that made DS think of fruitful meaning "bringing in the $$" and said "Hey, NYC is fruitful. I said "tie it in, baby!"

 

[Buckalew11]

He decided to stick w/listing the coastal plains as "fruited" b/c of the crops from FL, GA, DC, etc. as mentioned earlier. He also stated that the big cities and businesses of the coastal plain were fruitful. It was the photo of NYC that made DS think of fruitful meaning "bringing in the $$" and said "Hey, NYC is fruitful. I said "tie it in, baby!"

Well, it IS called "the Big Apple".

 

[java]

He decided to stick w/listing the coastal plains as "fruited" b/c of the crops from FL, GA, DC, etc. as mentioned earlier. He also stated that the big cities and businesses of the coastal plain were fruitful. It was the photo of NYC that made DS think of fruitful meaning "bringing in the $$" and said "Hey, NYC is fruitful. I said "tie it in, baby!"

Wrong but I admire his imagination.

 

[Talking Hands]

PA, down through FL all have plenty of fruited plain

 

[Green Tea]

I would have said Blue Ridge for mtns.

 

[Cindy B]

LOL! I actaully talked about this song within a music class (I was the extended music sub) and we talked about how every portion of the US is involved.

I think you did it correctly about the fruited plain being the east coast. However, you could argue the West Coast as well. Since we need to use the text (which I hate using as well-- there are so many other great resources besides an outdated textbook-- but that's another argument for another time), I would go with the answer you have.

I like your son's thought about NYC. That was a clever answer!

 

[WDWAurora]

I would have said Blue Ridge for mtns.

Completely agree.

 

[Buckalew11]

I would have said Blue Ridge for mtns.

The Blue Ridge Mountains ARE part of the Appalachian Mountains!! The Appalachian Mountains go from GA to Maine, I believe.

 

[WDWAurora]

The Blue Ridge Mountains ARE part of the Appalachian Mountains!! The Appalachian Mountains go from GA to Maine, I believe.

Right, but I don't think the color stretches the whole span. It may, but I was fairly sure that was a unique characteristic of the Blue Ridge mtns.

 

[Pugsley]

FYI, DC isn't known for growing cherries. Maybe you're thinking of the Japanese cherry blossom trees, but they don't bear fruit. Or maybe you're thinking of Washington State.