DISCUSSION OF SPECIALTIES. 107 



ing purposes. He selected it because it is adapted to his 

 special use. It is dry, sandy loam, which has been obtained 

 by clearing off those knolls that are to be found in all that 

 district south of Providence. The knolls being covered with 

 scrub oak, he clears them off and leaves the branches on the 

 ground for protection. He meets the great obstacle to the 

 successful cultivation of that sort of land by irrigation, and 

 not having head enough to force the water on to his land by 

 gravity, he has his boilers and his pumps, and whenever a 

 piece of land wants water, he fires up his boiler and pumps 

 the water on to it, and m that way he meets his exigency and 

 obtains his crop. 



You can all remember when it was a difficult thing to 

 obtain a nice cantelope melon in the market ; but now, by 

 attention to the culture of that one vegetable, it is raised with 

 great success. The entire stock of the most successful grower 

 of green-flesh melons for the Boston market had passed away 

 before the time of the Annual Exhibition on the 25th of 

 September last year, and the men who took the prizes were 

 the men who sold their crop for ten cents apiece, while he 

 had sold his for twenty-five cents. He has discovered a way 

 by which he can mature his crop in advance of other growers 

 and thus obtain a much better price. 



Take the cultivation of the strawberry, as profitable a 

 crop, probably, as any man can raise, and, when grown under 

 proper circumstances and with proper care, as certain a crop 

 as any other. I can show you a man who has five acres of 

 strawberries every year, and keeps up the fertility of his 

 land by general culture. He told me that he raised his best 

 strawberries on his poorest land. Why? Simply because 

 he realizes the great demand of the strawberry for water, and 

 meets that demand. He has water under control, and when 

 his plants need water they have it. The result is, that on 

 his poorest land he is able to raise his best strawberries. 



I have nothing to say in contravention of the paper, but 

 only in enlargement or amplification of it. I think you will 

 find that the man who desires to achieve large success in any 

 branch of husbandry can only be successful by devoting him- 

 self to that one thing. But the question naturally arises 

 here. What is success? The common understanding is that 



