1891.] ESSAYS. 47 



he Imd not. But he thought if he could secure a man who liad, 

 the man, "while making a dollar for himself, might also make a 

 dollar for him." 1 told liim I knew of no such man to be hired. 

 And, besides, that T had never in all my life heard of but two 

 such men that were hired to manage such a business, and in both 

 these cases the owners gave their personal and constant oversight 

 to every detail of work. I told him that while not able, under 

 the, circumstances, to help him make any money, I was confident 

 that I could save him at least $5,000 if he would but adhere to 

 the advice which I could give him in just jive words — " DonH 

 do any such things Of course I knew he would not follow it, 

 for it would seem to him to be prompted by personal interest. 



He tried his experiment several years with two or more, I 

 think, different men. I occasionally looked in upon him to learn 

 what success attended the enterprise. On my last visit to his 

 place, I met several teams loaded with hot-bed sash which he had 

 wisely leased or sold to a market gardener who understood his 

 business. The green-house was desolate and cold, and, besides, 

 had collapsed under a heavy snowdrift, and the busy hum of 

 market garden work no longer enlivened the scene. He frankly 

 admitted that my advice given him was sound, but boasted of 

 wisdom enough to quit the business before he had sunken quite 

 as large a sum of money as I had predicted. 



The Prepakation of the Soil. 



The preparation of the soil and the manipulations of the 

 plants are very simple processes to one used to ordinary garden 

 work. The soil for the seed bed should be mixed with about one- 

 third its bulk of well rotted stable manure, and made as fine and 

 mellow as thorough spading and pulverizing can make it, to the 

 depth of about one foot. 



For the first winter crop the seed should be sown in Septem- 

 ber, either in open ground or in an uncovered frame. The seed 

 should be covered about one-fourth inch with very fine soil, 

 pressed down gently with the back of a shovel. The best way 

 of covering the seed is by sifting the soil through a fine coal 

 sieve as evenly as possible. The seed, almost invariably used for 

 forcing under glass, is the wiiite seeded Tennis-Ball, sometimes 



