36 SUCCESS WITH SMALL FRUITS. 



familiar with the soil and its culture, — mechanics, profes- 

 sional men, who hope to regain health by coming back to 

 nature, and citizens whose ill-success or instincts suggest 

 country life and labors. From both these classes, and es- 

 pecially from the latter, I receive very many letters, con- 

 taining all kinds of questions. The chief burden on most 

 minds, however, is summed up in the words, ''Do small 

 fruits pay?" To meet the needs of these two classes is 

 one of the great aims of this work ; and it is my most ear- 

 nest wish not to mislead by high-colored pictures. 



Small fruits pay many people well ; and unless location, 

 soil, or climate is hopelessly against one, the degree of profit 

 will depend chiefly upon his skill, judgment, and industry. 

 The raising of small fruits is like other callings, in which 

 some are getting rich, more earning a fair livelihood, and 

 not a few failing. It is a business in which there is an 

 abundance of sharp, keen competition ; and ignorance, poor 

 judgment, and shiftless, idle ways will be as fatal as in the 

 workshop, store, or office. 



Innumerable failures result from inexperience. I will 

 give one extreme example, which may serve to illustrate 

 the sanguine mental condition of many who read of large 

 returns in fruit culture. A young man who had inherited 

 a few hundred dollars wrote me that he could hire a piece 

 of land for a certain amount, and he wished to invest the 

 balance — every cent — in plants, thus leaving himself no 

 capital with which to continue operations, but expecting that 

 a speedy crop would lift him at once into a prosperous ca- 

 reer. I wrote that under the circumstances I could not 

 supply him, — that it would be about the same as robbery to 

 do so ; and advised him to spend several years with a prac- 

 tical and successful fruit grower and learn the business. 



Most people enter upon this calling in the form of a 



