248 Notes and Gleanmgs. 



lion dollars' worth of products annually ? Yet all this is clearly "getting land, 

 and going to work with one idea." Is it possible for error to be more thoroughly 

 contradicted and exploded ? 



Then in close neighborhood to these great establishments is a tract of twen- 

 ty-three acres devoted to growing flower-seeds. Here is another case of "spe- 

 cial farmina; ; " more " jretting; land, and goins: to work with one idea ; " and, more 

 hopeless than all, that idea being the apparently two-penny one of raising flower- 

 seeds. Yet from very small beginnings this has grown to an enormous business, 

 giving ample evidence that the proprietor is both "satisfied" and "successful." It 

 requires fifty persons merely to pack up the seeds and fill the orders, which pour 

 in by mail at a rate requiring three persons to open the letters containing them. 

 But there are specialties beside which even this floral cornucopia dwindles into 

 a small afl'air. There is in Pennsylvania a tract of over four hundred acres, all 

 which is devoted to "special farming," the production of all kinds of garden- 

 seeds. The proprietors, father and son, have been more than half a century 

 engaged in this employment, and have been both satisfied and successful. The 

 father got land, and " went to work with one idea ; " only one, remember, — that 

 of producing seeds : and, from the twenty acres upon which he began, the business 

 has grown up to an extent requiring twenty times twenty acres. The " one 

 idea," thoroughly carried out, accomplished this result. 



But the agriculture of our country abounds with examples of success which 

 disprove the extraordinary position of the writer quoted above. The one idea 

 so condemned is the prime essential to success. The beginner must have defi- 

 nite plans. He needs concentration, not diffusion : his aims and labors must 

 «(9/ be "diversified." There are repeated instances of men "getting land, and 

 going to work with one idea," — that of raising only tomatoes, asparagus, or even 

 horse-radish, — and getting rich. These instances are being annually multiplied 

 in number. It is notorious that those onion-growers whose "special farming" 

 is the production of that vegetable, invariably succeed better than those who 

 diversify their labors with attention to a dozen others. There are men near the 

 great cities who produce nothing but lettuce. Close attention to this " one idea " 

 has made them masters of the art of producing an article so perfect, that the 

 demand is unlimited, and the reward is a golden success. 



But foreigners exceed us in devotion to the one idea of special farming. 

 Their horticultural practice is an epitome of specialties. A recent traveller 

 furnishes the following notes upon the subject : — 



"The visitor who passes through the markets of Paris cannot fail to be struck 

 by the size and beauty of the fruits and vegetables displayed. There are huge 

 and perfect pears, a glistening array of salads, enormous heads of snowy cauli- 

 flower, and giant stalks of asparagus, which attract attention no less for their 

 size and faultless condition than for vast quantities, all equally fine and large 

 of their kind. These are due to the wonderful skill and patient industry of the 

 French gardeners, who are unequalled by any others, either here or in Europe, 

 in the art of cultivating market produce. One cause of this superiority is the 

 devotion of the French to specialties. This system obtains as generally among 

 the gardeners as among the men of arts and sciences. An American market 



