10 



and if he doesn't get nearly a thousand dollars for his cran- 

 berries I shall be very much surprised. 



I have another friend, who owns a large cranberry yard in 

 the town of Franklin, Mass. It has cost him on an average 

 more than five hundred dollars an acre, some of it nearly a 

 thousand dollars an acre to set, because he had everything to 

 contend with. It was an old overgrown swamp, almost inac- 

 cessible. He now has about twenty acres in full bearing, and 

 when I was there, the other day, he pointed to one meadow of 

 about twelve acres, and said : " There, I am offered twenty 

 thousand dollars for that meadow, not over fourteen acres at 

 the outside." 



" Why don't you take it ? " said I. 



" Take it ! why, it pays me the interest on over fifty thou- 

 sand dollars, and has done for several years. I can't afford to 

 sell it for twenty thousand ! " 



And at the time of my visit, instead of wishing to sell any 

 part of his extensive plantation, he had three or four Irishmen 

 in the mud and water half up to their knees, extending the 

 area of his vines, at an enormous cost per acre. 



I mention these instances not to recommend every farmer to 

 go and do likewise, that is, to run into grapes or cranberries or 

 tobacco, but simply to show the importance of studying and 

 taking advantage of the natural capacities of the farm. If it 

 is specially adapted to grapes, you may cultivate them ; if it is 

 more particularly adapted to the dairy, make a specialty of 

 that ; if you have meadows that offer a prospect of success 

 with cranberries, you will do well to consider whether they 

 wouldn't pay better than any other one thing. But whatever 

 you undertake, do it thoroughly and well. 



You have good soil over a considerable part of Norfolk 

 County ; land that is capable of almost anything by proper 

 treatment ; but if I should ask any farmer within the sound of 

 my voice whether he doesn't think his farm is capable of a far 

 greater development than he has yet been able to bring to bear 

 upon it, 1 presume the answer would be unanimously in the 

 affirmative. 



But here the difficulty in the way is partly the same as that 

 to which I have alluded, — the ownership of too much land, or 

 rather of more land than can be profitably managed with the 



