INTRODUCTION. 9 



for land, and as soon as he can see out, buys another 

 quarter. 



What is life for if we spend it in accumulating 

 that which we cannot use, cannot take with us, 

 but which makes a slave of its possessor ? 



It is a most commendable ambition to make a 

 good home. Not necessarily a fine and expensive 

 house, but the best you can afford; a lawn with 

 some shrubs and flowers; a fruit garden and orchard. 

 Try for a while a little different diet from the regu- 

 lation kind: meat, bread and sometimes potatoes. 

 See how the color will come to the cheeks of the 

 wife and children, when there is spread upon your 

 table the lucious strawberry, raspberry, grape, the 

 acid cherry that comes at the time when, tired and 

 dusty, you come in from corn plowing. Use more 

 fruit and less meat, and see how the world will 

 grow brighter; how much healthier and conse- 

 quently happier you will be. 



Some are deterred from planting fruit trees by a 

 mistaken idea that it takes too long for young trees 

 to come into bearing. Plant the trees as soon as 

 your ground can be got ready, and see how little 

 there is in this idea. You do not "wait" for the 

 fruit. Time will go on just the same, whether you 

 have planted a tree or not. But if you will call it 

 waiting, then plant at the same time strawberries, 

 raspberries, blackberries, grapes, etc. The straw- 

 berries and raspberries will bring you a full crop 

 the second year, the currants, gooseberries, black- 

 berries and grapes will come in the third, and by 



