FINE ARTS OF A COUNTRY HOME 249 



stables, we need improvement, and each man can very 

 easily find a field of work for himself. He will run 

 across problems everywhere, if he thinks while he 

 works. If you get gloomy or lonesome, go out and 

 converse with your seedlings your vegetable chil- 

 dren and you will refresh your spirit wonderfully. 



I remember the whole history of garden berries 

 in American gardens, from the introduction of Wil- 

 son's Albany strawberry and the Red Antwerp rasp- 

 berry. In my childhood there were in our gardens 

 none of these things, only quinces and gooseberries; 

 while around the fences black raspberries were oc- 

 casionally sowed by the birds, and in our pastures 

 and meadows were wild strawberries five hun- 

 dred to the quart. William Wood, in 1629, said, 

 " There be strawberries in abundance in New Eng- 

 land, and one may gather sixteen quarts in half a 

 day." This was about the state of affairs until 1850, 

 and then we began to have berry gardens that were 

 worth the while. The race of huge berries began, 

 however, at least twenty years later the one-to-a- 

 mouthful or twenty-to-a-quart sort. 



We have to learn how to sympathize with trees 

 and shrubs, enter into their will and purpose, exactly 

 as we do with animals. It will never do to think that 

 all trees can be even trimmed alike, much less fed 

 alike, any more than a stable full of horses, cows, and 

 sheep. The country home maker has to study all 

 these things, not in the general, but in the particular. 

 Pruning and trimming and helping a tree must be- 



