178 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



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91 





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MR. THURT0N (AT THE LEFT) TO MR. BARTLETT: "THAT'S THE RESULT OF CANADA 



WOOD ASHES." 



enviable esteem you are held by your 

 fellow townsmen, but they seem to 

 think that you feel as if you have a 

 mission in life, and that you are labor- 

 ing solely to make that mission suc- 

 cessful. They tell me that y< >u w< >rk hard. 

 If y<>u should put the same amount of 

 effort and the same amount of time in 

 some other business, do you not think 

 that you could make that business 

 mure successful than your farming'?" 



He laughed heartily and said, "That 

 is just what I have done. I have been 

 more successful in a strictly financial 

 way by conducting a city store, than I 

 have been in managing a market gar- 

 den. For fourteen years I had a gro- 

 cery business at Mt. Vernon, New 

 Yiirk with my brother as a partner. 



We did a business of $150,000 a year, 

 and we made money, but all the time 

 I felt that the grocery business is not 

 my life's work. I wanted to be a mar- 

 ket gardener because I longed for 

 country life, and wanted to settle 

 down in the country, enjoy fresh air 

 and have the fun of raising the best 

 vegetables possible." 



"What you say gives me great sat- 

 isfaction, because it coincides with my 

 opinion. I tell people everywhere, 

 chiefly in instructions to teachers in 

 the West for their vocational work in 

 agriculture, and also in my addresses 

 before granges in Connecticut, that to 

 make farming successful one must 

 first of all like farming better than any 

 other occupation, and because of that 



