48 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



up my strawberries, and cut my grape-vines back to two eyes. 

 The winter had its hopes, though it was not without its anx- 

 ieties. In the following spring I found that my strawberry- 

 plants had wintered well; and a little later I discovered 

 that about one-third of my grape-vines were dead. As I in- 

 timated in the beginning of this paper that I should make 

 known some of the lessons which my farming experience 

 had taught me, I will here state what I learned at this time. 

 Lesson 1st, Never purchase a second-rate tree, shrub, vine, or 

 seed of any kind, at any price, however low, when you can 

 get a first-rate article at a fair price. The importance of this 

 advice cannot well be over-estimated ; and I would recommend 

 that every young farmer's wife work it in worsted, and place 

 it in a conspicuous place, and, if her husband follows the ad- 

 vice, one important step in the right direction will have been 

 taken. I had purchased low-priced grape-vines, and, what is 

 unusual even in these times, I got just what I purchased. I 

 subsequently learned, that they had been forced into exist- 

 ence in a greenhouse by bottom heat, and were as ill pre- 

 pared to stand the winter without protection as would be a 

 January chicken hatched in a modern incubator. My straw- 

 berry enterprise proved a success. From the two thousand 

 plants, I sold two thousand boxes, which amounted to six 

 hundred dollars. Had I discovered a gold-mine on my farm, 

 I should not have felt more elated than I did at this unex- 

 pected success. This stroke of good-fortune settled every 

 thing in my own mind, and gave me an amount of self-reli- 

 ance which I have never been without up to this time. It 

 was Napoleon who said that it required greater generalship 

 to take care of a victory than to manage a defeat; and I 

 think this holds true outside of military tactics, and applies 

 to the every-day affairs of life. Had my first experiment 

 proved a failure, I should undoubtedly have tried again, and 

 till I succeeded. But it was a success : I had gained a vic- 

 tory, and, had I made the most of it, one great blunder of 

 my life would have been avoided. I had thousands of 

 plants, plenty of land, and one year's experience, and but 

 very little competition ; and still I neglected to enlarge my 

 beds to any great extent. There was no earthly reason why 

 I should not have raised four thousand dollars' worth of 

 strawberries in 1865, instead of a thousand dollars' worth. 



