Mr. Joseph Keeler Turns Farmer 75 



time and opportunities permitting, he would try and develop 

 in the county some of the simple methods under which his 

 daily business operations in the city were carried on. He fitted 

 up the old house comfortably for Ernest and soon had installed 

 an experienced Scotchman, with his wife and young family to 

 take charge of the young orchards, grow special stuff for the 

 canneries and gradually evolve some new features of cultiva- 

 tion, which it seemed to him should be successful. 



Mr. Keeler, so interested had he become, determined to have 

 the house "open" for the summer months and to spend at least 

 his week-ends in seeing matters develop. During his repeated 

 visits, he found that the neighbours were discussing more seri- 

 ously some of the methods of cooperation, one of which had been 

 employed successfully at the cheese factory for years, and, 

 through the young acquaintances which Ernest's jolly ways 

 had so easily made, Mr. Keeler was not long in getting them 

 organized into an association for mutual assistance in buying 

 artificial manures, spraying materials for the orchards, and for 

 picking, packing and marketing apples and other products. 

 At his invitation a meeting was held in the old house and he was 

 not a little surprised to find displayed an amount of accurate 

 practical knowledge which served to assure him that with busi- 

 ness methods in buying and selling, very satisfactory results 

 were not only possible but even certain. 



So the season advanced from the early spring into the long 

 summer days and these found Mr. Keeler escorting Fanny and 

 his eldest son down to the "Farm," himself delighted with the 

 prospect of a novel experience and the growing hope that his 

 daughter might there regain her old-time health and spirits 

 and that his eldest son might obtain a wholesomer view of life. 

 It had been only the failure of her son to throw off his dissipated 

 habits, which had injured her vanity, and her anxiety regard- 

 ing Fanny's continued delicate health which had half-reconciled 

 Madam Keeler to the absurdity of her husband's farming fad, 

 and his encouraging Ernest to exile himself in the dreary 

 country. She knew that "it was all folly and that both would 

 tire of it; but supposed there could come no harm from their 

 trying it for a summer it they chose. She and Maud would go 

 to Muskoka cottage." 



