CAN WE MAKE IT PAY? 261 



caring for green house flowers. I would have a 

 shrubbery and it should consist of lilacs and other 

 shrubs that furnish a large quantity of saleable 

 flowers. This is a blunder about many green houses, 

 that they do not have shrubberies or tulips and lilies 

 in large stock. Here again I could have quoted 

 amazing results, only to mislead the letter writer and 

 make mischief. 



The fact is that conditions and temperaments 

 vary so greatly that it is utterly impossible either in 

 a letter or in a book to give anything more than a 

 general outline of advice. This one thing holds good 

 all the time, that you must go out prepared to rough 

 it somewhat and be satisfied with a moderate in- 

 come. 



Three letters turn up here next, each one of them 

 inquiring about the exploiting companies that are 

 sending out circulars bidding for these new country 

 home makers with inducements that are startling. 

 What they have to say is sometimes true, but there is 

 this one single reply to be made in all such cases; 

 never buy a rod of land until you have seen it. 

 Then, after you have become fairly well acquainted 

 with the land and its surroundings, stay long enough 

 to comprehend the climate, and then you must know 

 your relations to market and your probable relations 

 to neighbors. It will not be a severe judgment to say 

 that much the larger part of this advertising is not 

 true. I have seen some pitiful results from the 



