4 



HICK OR Y CHIPS. 



any use of these big over-grown trees and plants, so 

 big that you cannot get them into a dinner-pail. 

 Enoch and I got up a new kind of poke-root last 

 year, for greens — 50 cents a dozen, postpaid, to any 

 part of the United States or Canada, with five pack- 

 ets of grand new unmixed flower seeds thrown in to 

 all who order two dozen between now and the first 

 of February — and we succeeded in growing them so 

 small and nice that two dozen of them weighed only 

 a cent's worth. And some of them were actually 

 budded already to flower and make delicious greens. 

 It don't pay to fuss too much about size, anyway. 

 If you only have the crown of the plant, that is the 

 vital part, and so many great sprawling roots only 

 make so much more postage money. When Enoch 

 and I get orders for huckleberries and toad-flax we 

 do not bother to go to work and grow them, but go 

 out in the cow-lot and dig them, and we can get ten 

 dollars' worth from a square yard, and leave enough 

 for seed. Enoch and I have sold the cow-lot clean 

 of weeds a half dozen times already, and we have 

 been in the business only since Uncle Samuel came 

 down. 



I hope, Mr. Editor, that you will use your influ- 

 ence to stop this stirring up of the good old ways. 

 Enoch and I do not want some one asking about 

 everything we do, and telling us just how we shall 

 squeeze a bug so as to get the most satisfaction out 

 of him, or that we can't name a new pink after the 

 king of the Cannibal islands and all his family, just 

 as if it was anybody's business what we have or what 

 we do as long as it pays! 



Enoch is fond of planning his garden and of 

 knowing the reason for everything. He comes 

 naturally by it. Some of his experience may be 

 grateful at this season when folks are mapping out 

 their gardens. Enoch was much taken with the 

 figures in the books and catalogues about raising 

 four or five crops on the same patch every year and 

 making big money off every one and getting the 

 land richer in the bargain. He wanted to plow up 

 a corner of the cow-lot to make his new-fangled 

 garden on, but I suggested that I did not think it a 

 good plan to tear up all those huckleberries and 

 mulleins which are a sure thing for half the year. 

 So he figured out his profits on a half acre of land 

 down by Deacon Brown's corner. He was to lead 

 off with radishes, follow up with beets and early 

 cabbages, with beans between the rows, and wind 

 up with celery. He got all the plows and hand 

 hoes and bug elixirs which were pictured in the 

 catalogues and began operations on a confident 

 scale. He had his profits all figured out by the 



end of January, and they did look convincing, es- 

 pecially as figures cannot lie. I looked them over 

 carefully when Enoch showed them to me, and sug- 

 gested that perhaps there might be a hitch some- 

 where, but he snapped up — 



" Hitch ? Why here are the figgers — see ?" 



And the figures did look handsome : 



Cr. 



21,360 bunches radishes @ .05 $1,068.00 



II ,891 bunches beets @ .095-2 1,129.64 



5,032 heads cabbage® .06 301.92 



53 bushels snap beans @ .90 47-70 



6,113 crowns celery @ .11 672.43 



$3.21 . 



Dr. 



Plowing ^ acre land $1.00 



Cultivating same 5.00 



Seeds and bug squirters 21.75 



3 lbs. bug elixir @ .50 1.50 



Harvesting and marketing 37.90 



3 pinches of Oiler's fertilizer @ i.oo 3.00 



70.1 



Total profit, acre $3, 149-5 



But somewhere or somehow there was an aching 

 void about it which the figures could not fill up. I 

 figured it up several times ; added it upwards and 

 downwards and crosswise and back and forth, and 

 although my sums were not always the same, I 

 concluded that Enoch was right ; the half-acre had 

 certainly 21,780 square feet in it, as he triumphant- 

 ly showed me, and the stuff could be easily set in 

 it. Enoch is particularly good at figures. He 

 comes by it. 



Now that garden was better than a circus with a 

 double ring and six clowns. Enoch had a new 

 pocket put in his wampus so that he could carry 

 Guessem's book on " Cash for the Pocket Book, or 

 How to Get the Gold out of the Land." This noted 

 author has a wonderfully practical work. Enoch's 

 radishes came up nicely and he was beside himself 

 with delight- He added up his figures again and 

 was surer than ever that they were right. Yet 

 when he went to pull his radishes he found that 

 two-thirds of them were grubby, and he could not 

 find a market for the rest of them. He sold a few 

 to the neighbors and then plowed the rest up. But 

 he was not discouraged, for he said that Guessem 

 stated that radishes were worth three cents apiece- 

 as a fertilizer, and he would get his money back in 

 beets. But the beet seed was not good, and after 

 waiting three weeks for it to come up, he ordered 

 more seed and sowed again. But only half of it 

 came this time, and it was so late when the beets- 

 were fit for pulling that no one wanted them. Then- 

 he proposed to sell them to me to feed the cow> 



