142 



GJ.EA.\[NGS i:s' BEE OULTUEE. 



Feb. 



starting in the business of gardening, I 

 should feel a little discouraged to see him 

 buying lemonade at a restaurant. He can 

 not afford it. Ernest just now informs me 

 that President Fairchild, of Oberlin College, 

 once told the students that they could not 

 afford to buy lemonade by the drink. Lem- 

 onade is beneficial to the health, without 

 doubt, and the use of lemons in the family 

 is to be recommended; but you can buy 

 them by the dozen, so the expense is not 

 more than two or three cents each for nice 

 ones, and a good lemon will make a fair 

 pitcher of lemonade for a small family. 

 When we have strawberries, currants, pie- 

 plant, and such like tart fruits and vegeta- 

 bles, they take the place, to a great extent, 

 of the lemonade. The most dangerous part 

 of this practice, however, of buying drinks 

 — even temperance drinks — is the fashion of 

 treating. I have known farmers' boys to be 

 induced to use their hard earnings to treat a 

 lot of girls to ice-cream or lemonade, when 

 the boys could poorly afford it. Your com- 

 rades may call you stingy ; but it is far bet- 

 ter to be called stingy than to have it said 

 you are not able to pay your honest debts, or 

 to clothe yourself decently, and get a tolera- 

 ble educaticn. 



Last summer I found that one of the boys 

 who went with our fruit-wagon was buying 

 lemonade almost every day, and his wages 

 was only 7i cents an hour; and I knew that, 

 after paying for his board and clothing, he 

 could not afford to buy lemonade ; and when 

 I heard that he was not only buying it for 

 himself, but was treating others, I decided I 

 could not keep him. These are little things, 

 dear friends ; but it is little things that turn 

 the scale between success and failure in life. 



In speaking of the ice-crop on the Hudson 

 River, I alluded to the fact that ice is get- 

 ting to be a thing of every-day use. Well, I 

 believe it is a fact that good drinking-water, 

 cool and refreshing, is one of the great 

 agents in discouraging intemperance. 1 

 was once in the habit of drinking beer to 

 some extent. It was recommended by our 

 family physician, and I thought I needed it. 

 A great many times, when I felt as though 

 I must have it, I found that, by taking a 

 drink of ice-water, I did not care particular- 

 ly for the beer, after all ; and no doubt 



thousands will find it easier to break away 

 from these habits where nice cool drinking- 

 water is always at hand. The Women's 

 Christian Temperance Union is doing a 

 great work in providing convenient and at- 

 tractive drinking - fountains. Putting up 

 and filling ice-houses may greatly help this 

 work around our homes ; and what other 

 one thing is it that makes a place more 

 homelike than sparkling water and a bright 

 tin cup, not only to invite the members of 

 the household, but the wayfaring man as 

 wellV Dear reader, is the nice tin cup with 

 the water to accompany it one of the ad- 

 juncts of your homeV 



I do not know how my friend Frost stands 

 financially, but he is a hard-working man, 

 and one who makes his money by the sale of 

 fruits and vegetables, and I have never visit- 

 ed any one where there was such economy 

 practiced in every thing as at Mr. Frosfs. 

 Every thing that was not in actual use was 

 carefully put away under cover, and yet 

 there was no extravagant outlay of money 

 anywhere. He has a pretty residence, and 

 a nice yard, but nothing to indicate that he 

 wished to make a show or any great display 

 in the world. The evergieens were beauti- 

 ful, but it was evident that they had been 

 planted as windl)reaks to his greenhouses, as 

 well as for ornament. 



Twenty-four hours after my visit to the 

 asparagus-house, I was talking the matter 

 over with Peter Henderson. Said he, "Why, 

 Mr. Root, you have just given me informa- 

 tion on a point I particularly wanted to 

 know about. It is this matter of giving 

 plants their regular winter rest, t)r nap. 

 When your name was handed me I was just 

 dictating an article to the stenographer, on 

 this very subject. We florists have foimd to 

 our sorrow, that if this winter rest is not 

 given to plants that demand it, sooner or 

 later our stock will run out. I should not 

 have thought it possible for Mr. Frost to get 

 a good growth, year after year, in this aspar- 

 agus-house, but with the brief natural winter 

 he allows them before commencing to force 

 them by an artificial spring, it is probably 

 practicable. We have just decided that 

 something of the same kind must be manag- 

 ed with our violets that we force year after 

 year for early spring bloom." 



To he cantivued Mar. lf>, 18H7. 



