AGRICULTURAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 89 



have a true picture of some of my boyhood hard- 

 ships. 



These apples were loaded into a New Jersey 

 scoop wagon box with side boards ; forty or more 

 bushels of them, and hauled ten miles with three 

 horses. The span was so hitched to long double- 

 trees and neck yokes that they straddled one path, 

 while the lead horse took it, by which arrangement 

 the wagon wheels ran in the paths followed by the 

 tongue horses and escaped the all but bottomless 

 ruts. In the market apples brought eighteen and 

 three-fourths cents per bushel in " shinplasters," 

 redeemable at the store where the prices were 

 about 100 per cent, above cost. 



No one understood then and few understand 

 now, that the difference between our outgo and 

 our income was largely secured through parting 

 with the unearned natural resources of the land, 

 such as wood, humus, nitrogen, potash and phos- 

 phate of lime. That is, our profits were not all 

 due to wise plans, economy and hard work. Even 

 to this day such misleading, incorrect balance 

 sheets are being struck in the minds of a multitude 

 of farmers. And yet in spite of this I am fully 

 persuaded that a well-informed young man, with 

 a farm paid for and a little surplus capital, could 



