xii 



PREFACE. 



their soils "not suited to cauliflowers," so 

 little in fact, that out of every thousand 

 plants they get a bare half dozen of mark- 

 etable heads. If they attempt a crop of 

 onions, they somehow get nothing but 

 scullions. Their turnips and radishes get 

 pithy and worthless. Their cabbages will 

 not head. Their beets, parsnips, and car- 

 rots, grow spindling roots, and they pour 

 upon the heads of their seedsmen every 

 invective and malediction. It is in vain 

 that they are told that the seed from the 

 same bag has produced splendid crops in 

 a number of instances ; they know that 

 the seedsman is lying, or at any rate that 

 some extraordinarily favorable circum- 

 stances must have attended the other 

 cultivators. If they set out an orchard, 

 their trees grow poorer than those of other 



