244 An American Fruit-Farm 



made stenography, bookkeeping, and economics 

 possible for scores of people — at salaries. But 

 there is no accounting for tastes among colleges. I 

 do not doubt that any faculty would have eaten 

 Neville*s peaches with relish and asked for more, 

 like Oliver Twist, but as yet the capacity to make 

 a thousand bushels of peaches grow where none 

 grew before is not considered sufficient evidence to 

 merit more from the Faculty than a modest order 

 for peaches. Nevertheless Neville was another 

 ten-thousand-dollar man. He could not have 

 learned it from his father, or from the neighbors, 

 and he never attended raspberry lectures. He 

 was bom an M. F. 



In talking with Neville I never quite secured his 

 secret, — ^if he had one; yet he never concealed his 

 methods, nor boasted of them. He knew wind and 

 weather, and could anticipate the market closer 

 than any other man in the Valley. He always had 

 something to sell. Somehow his crops never failed. 

 He would never suffer a poor plant to live on his 

 farm. At almost the first symptom of disease he 

 would root it out and replant healthy stock. He 

 had few varieties and somehow managed to have 

 the same kind together and always in paying 

 quantity. His principal idea in raising fruit seems 

 to have been to have fruit ripening all through the 

 season. Beginning early in June with strawberries, 

 he followed with berries, fruits, of tree and vine, 

 till snow was falling. His reputation for fruit 

 brought him buyers the year roxmd, and he always 



