XX PREFACE. 



growing, he paid an annual rent of fifty dol- 

 lars per acre and made money at even that 

 price. He usually raised twenty-five to 

 thirty acres of potatoes, and sometimes 

 fifty ; five of radishes, five or six of peas, 

 fifty to sixty thousand heads of celery, and 

 all the ordinary vegetables in various quan- 

 tities. In 1836 he spent a winter at his 

 home in Stuttgardt, and in so doing spent 

 all his money, except a bare hundred 

 dollars with which he got back to Albany. 

 His credit was so good that he had no 

 trouble to get what land he needed, and 

 so he went to work again in good earnest. 

 That year there was a severe drouth in 

 Southern New York, and vegetables were 

 very scarce and very dear in market. 

 Eoessle, with characteristic shrewdness, 

 bought up all the crops about him in 



