40 SUCCESS WITH SMALL FRUITS. 



must be obtained before a penny can be used for other pur- 

 poses. Anything can be raised from a farm easier than a 

 mortgage. 



Success depends very largely, also, on the character of 

 the soil. If it is so high and dry as to suffer severely from 

 drought two years out of three, it cannot be made to pay ex- 

 cept by irrigation ; if so low as to be wet, rather than moist, 

 the prospects are but little better. Those who are perma- 

 nently settled must do their best with such land as they 

 have, and in a later chapter I shall suggest how differing 

 soils should be managed. To those who can still choose 

 their location, I would recommend a deep mellow loam, 

 with a rather compact subsoil, — moist, but capable of thor- 

 ough drainage. Diversity of soil and exposure offer pecu- 

 Har advantages also. Some fruits thrive best in a stiff clay, 

 others in sandy upland. Early varieties ripen earlier on a 

 sunny slope, while a late kind is rendered later on a north- 

 em hillside, or m the partial shade of a grove. In treating 

 each fruit and variety, I shall try to indicate the soils and 

 exposures to which they are best adapted. 



Profits. — The reader will naturally wish for some definite 

 statements of the profits of fruit farming ; but I almost hesi- 

 tate to comply with this desire. A gentleman wrote to me 

 that he sold from an acre of Cuthbert raspberries ^800 worth 

 of fruit. In view of this fact, not a few will sit down and 

 begin to figure, — " If one acre yielded ^800, ten acres 

 would produce |8,ooo ; twenty acres ^16,000," etc. Mul- 

 titudes have been led into trouble by this kind of reasoning. 

 The capacity of an engine with a given motor power can be 

 measured, and certain and unvarying results predicted ; but 

 who can measure the resources of an acre through varying 

 seasons and under differing culture, or foretell the price 

 of the crops? In estimating future profits, we can only 



