CHAPTER II. 



Early Experiences and Seed-beds. 



I WILL now give a few details of my first experiences in 

 gardening for profit, and will ever look back to those 

 early days as the very happiest of my life. Imagination, 

 with her undipped wings, ever bore me up, and hopes flut- 

 tered around as thick as moths over a cabbage patch. Not 

 }^et had I sounded all the mysterious depths of vegetable 

 arithmetic, or proved by the double rule of three that if one 

 lettuce plant will bring two cents, it does not necessarily fol- 

 low that 43,500 on an acre at one foot apart will bring $870. 

 The doubtful propriety of counting chickens before they are 

 hatched, with the consequent inconveniences often resulting 

 therefrom, had not yet impressed itself fully on my confiding 

 mind. To me the world was a vast stomach of unlimited 

 capacity, and my mission to help fill it, by the aid of a natural 

 and considerate disposition on the part of all vegetables to 

 assist, with a minimum of effort on my part. 



Soothed and sustained by these pleasant anticipations, 

 and in blissful ignorance of the festive bug of high and low 

 degree, as well as the hilarious moth, ever intent on combin- 

 ing business with pleasure, as she flits from plant to plant, I 

 set out in my first attempt on two and a-half acres of nearly 

 pure sand, in the suburbs of the city of Galveston. This 

 area was increased in a few years to five acres, on which I 

 soon had a fine little orange grove coming on, as well as a 

 small vineyard behind the friendly shelter of oleander and 

 salt cedar trees, which kept off the blighting salt winds. 

 Here, by continuous and heavy fertilizing and tireless work, 

 stimulated by intense love for it, I managed, with the high 

 prices then and for many years prevailing, to make a very 

 satisfactory success of market-gardening, even though my 

 bright anticipations were never realized. Starting absolutely 



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