297 
him an unusually low price will bein most cases compelled 
to substitute a good many articles; this of course is no 
objection to the pedlar, if the price can be made suffi- 
ciently low; he will then in turn substitute so as to suit 
his respective orders, and by the time they get to the 
customer heaven only knows what they have got. He 
will sell you a dozen kinds of Apples out of one lot or 
variety. He will sell you a Concord Grape for a Pock- 
lington, and charge you seventy-five cents, when it is 
only worth ten cents. He will sell you Amsden Peaches 
for fifty cents, when the nursery he claims to represent 
_ will sell them for ten cents. He will sell you a Rose for 
a dollar that you could buy from a florist for twenty-five 
cents, and when you plant it it turns out to be a Dog 
Rose. He will sell you Strawberry plants at one dollar 
a dozen that the nursery sells at a dollar a hundred, ora 
Clematis for a dollar and a half that you could buy the 
world over for fifty cents. He hasa beautiful plate book, 
is a good talker, and generally succeeds in getting the 
ladies of the house interested with his book and the 
numerous fairy tales he will relate about the vigorous 
growth of his vines, the vivid coloring and exquisite 
perfume of his Roses, and the mellow Pears his trees will 
produce, will interest and captivate them all. In the 
form of the tree pedlar we have still preserved on earth 
a remnant of the evil spirit that first bequiled Mother 
Eve, and lured her into the unhappy transaction of med- 
dling with fruit. In the early Spring these pedlars flock 
into the large nurseries of the country and buy all the 
cheapest stock to be found to fill their orders. He may 
have sold one thousand Pear trees in small lots of a dozen 
each to a customer, four to be Bartlets, four Le Contes 
and four Kieffers, and to another he may have sold a 
dozen two of a kind, that will ripen in succession and 
