48 A B C OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 



studying over the different points that come up to one who is 

 trying to do his best. But before going en, just a word to tcwn 

 people who may happen to see these pages. 



There is a story told of St. John which is not in the Biblt-,. 

 but which we have good reason to think is genuine. It is said, 

 that while he was residing at Ephesus there came one day a 

 sportsman who had heard so much of this wise old man that 

 he went out of his way to see him ; and his surprise was great 

 when ke found St. John engaged in gently stroking a par- 

 tridge which he held in his hand. The sportsman could not 

 help telling how surprised he was to see so great a man em- 

 ployed on anything so small. Then St. John said: "What 

 have you in your hand ? " 



"A bow," replied the sportsman. 



St. John asked, " Why is it not bent ? " 



The sportsman replied : " Because if always bent it would 

 lose its strength." 



"That is just the reason," said St. John, "why I play with 

 the partridge. It is that my mind may be kept strong by not 

 being always at work." 



Now, we have thousands of ministers, doctors, lawyers, 

 business men, clerks, etc., in our town, who need to rest their 

 minds with something that is an entire change. Many of them 

 have garden-plots, or at least a little land where they could 

 grow strawberries. Would that they could be interested in this 

 most delightful pursuit. Allowing me to judge, it would be 

 far ahead of St. John's plan for recreation. There would be 

 profit in it as well as pleasure. There would be exercise in the 

 pure sunlight, and contact with mother earth the best medi- 

 cine in the world. There is something that can be done on a 

 strawberry-bed almost every day, from the time spring opens 

 until winter closes in. The strawberry is so lovely and refined 

 that no lady need be ashamed to be in its company. We have 

 amateur growers who have come to love this method of recrea- 

 tion, and who from constant daily attention have grown berries 



