90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



now find no better place to raise apples than on 

 that same farm of my boyhood, depleted as it is of 

 some of its plant food; nor perhaps could he find 

 any other business likely to bring more liberal 

 rewards in pleasure and money for the money and 

 the effort expended. What more comfortable 

 place to live in and get joy out of life than on the 

 banks of one of those finger lakes ! You may ask: 

 Why did not I or one of my children see all this 

 twenty-five years ago? As for myself my sad ex- 

 perience in those apple trees and my ignorance of 

 fruit culture dampened my ardor and misled my 

 judgment. As for my boys, they, like other young 

 people, imagine that escape from difficulties and 

 hardships awaits them at the other end of the 

 world; distance, too, has a wonderful enchant- 

 ment: 



" Hope springs eternal in the human breast, 

 Man never is, but always to be blest." 



I could not blame my children since I myself 

 listened to the " call of the wild " and moved 

 westward three times; if I go farther, I shall land 

 in the east on the other side of the world. 



But to return to our difficulties in that early 

 time: plowing was laborious and provoking not 



