86 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



work in an orchard, I should certainly go into 

 the business. So much is said about the im- 

 possibility of making any money at gardening 

 or fruit-raising that it is almost hopeless to con- 

 vince any one to the contrary, and it is far from 

 my wish to do any thing of the kind. My aim 

 is to tell how I manage to do without money, 

 not how to make it. The first is a topic upon 

 which I have had some experience, for reasons 

 beyond my control, while as to the last I can- 

 not speak as an expert. The scores of books 

 which prove that if a man can raise ten thou- 

 sand quarts of strawberries from an acre of 

 ground, and sell them at ten cents a quart, he 

 will grow rich and his family will rejoice, are 

 mostly based upon the experience of some 

 wonderfully clever person ; the truth of their 

 theory is irrefutable, provided you admit 

 the premises. They remind me of a circular 

 once sent to me by a man who was offering 

 fame and fortune in return for ten cents in 

 stamps. He set forth that if I bought from 

 him a certain prescription for a magic hair- 

 grower, to be manufactured at four cents a 

 bottle, fortune was mine. For if I sold ten 

 thousand bottles of the stuff to agents at fifteen 



