384 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
bear handling well, and the perfect ones were 
placed in half-bushel boxes and sent to my city 
grocer. Not one defective apple was packed, for 
I was determined that the Four Oaks stencil 
should be as favorably known for fruit as for 
other products. 
The grocer allowed me fifty cents a box. 
“The market is glutted with apples, but not 
your kind,” said he. “Can you send more?” 
I could not send more, for my young trees had 
done their best in producing ninety-six boxes of 
perfect fruit. Boxes and transportation came to 
ten cents for each box, and I received $38 for 
my first shipment of fruit. 
I cannot remember any small sum of money 
that ever pleased me more,—except the $28 
which I earned by seven months of labor in my 
fourteenth year; for it was “first fruits” of the 
last of our interlacing industries. 
Thirty-eight dollars divided among my trees 
would give one cent to each; but four years later 
these orchards gave net returns of ninety cents 
for each tree, and in four years from now they 
will bring more than twice that amount. At 
twelve years of age they will bring an annual 
income of $3 each, and this income will steadily 
increase for ten or fifteen years. At the time of 
writing, February, 1903, they are good for $1 a 
year, which is five per cent of $20. 
Would I take $20 apiece for these trees? Not 
much, though that would mean $70,000. I do 
SE ae ae ent 
