Some Sins of Nature 43 



I knew after I paid for the labour. 

 I had a gang of men at work a week on it, 

 after patient and careful preparation of the 

 soil with the most expensive commercial 

 fertilizer. In the winter I studied the 

 weather with nervous fear for those thousands 

 of precious cabbage plants. They pulled 

 through well, with the loss of about twenty 

 per cent. In the early spring the worms and 

 bugs and lice in succession attacked them and 

 we lost twenty per cent. more. But by rapid 

 working and high fertilizing we pushed them 

 ahead of these pests. Then they began to go 

 crazy and run up to seed and blossom in- 

 stead of making cabbage heads. Five per 

 cent, more were lost in these seed stalks. 



At last the day came for marketing. It 

 was a day of excitement. They were selling 

 in the New York market for $2.25 a crate, by 

 the papers, and that meant a neat profit on 

 the field. I began to pity my neighbours who 

 were still struggling with common farming. 



