20 SUCCESS WITH SMALL FRUITS. 



they can find better company. Other busy, practical souls 

 will prefer a more compact, straightforward treatise, that is 

 like a lesson in a class-room, rather than a stroll in the fields, 

 or a tour among the fruit farms, and while sorry to lose their 

 company, I have no occasion to find fault. 



I assure those, however, who, after this preliminary par- 

 ley, decide to go further, that I will do my best to make 

 our excursion pleasant, and to cause as little weariness as is 

 possible, if we are to return with full baskets. I shall not 

 follow the example of some thrifty people who invite one to 

 go " a-berrying," but lead away from fruitful nooks, propos- 

 ing to visit them alone by stealth. All the secrets I know 

 shall become open ones. I shall conduct the reader to all 

 the " good places," and name the good things I have dis- 

 covered in half a lifetime of research. I would, therefore, 

 modestly hint to the practical reader — to whom " time is 

 money," who has an eye to the fruit only, and with whom 

 the question of outlay and return is ever uppermost — that 

 he may, after all, find it to his advantage to go with us. 

 While we stop to gather a flower, listen to a brook or bird, 

 or go out of our way occasionally to get a view, he can 

 jog on, meeting us at every point where we " mean busi- 

 ness." These points shall occur so often that he will not 

 lose as much time as he imagines, and I think he will find 

 my business talks business-like, — quite as practical as he 

 desires. 



To come down to the plainest of plain prose, I am not a 

 theorist on these subjects, nor do I dabble in small fruits as 

 a rich and fanciful amateur, to whom it is a matter of indif- 

 ference whether his strawberries cost five cents or a dollar 

 a quart. As a farmer, milk must be less expensive than 

 champagne. I could not afford a fruit farm at all if it did 

 not more than pay its way, and in order to win the confi- 



