farm is so improved that it would continue to yield 

 largely for some years to come without further im- 

 provement. 



There is nothing remarkable claimed for Hilltop 

 Farm, and I have merely thrown the above thoughts 

 together at the suggestion of some of the members 

 of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society, to show 

 how a poor farm may be made productive, and even 

 profitable, by the liberal use of phosphates as ma- 

 nure, applied in the usual rotati jn system to com- 

 mon farming by a plain farmer. 



HOW I HAVE EDUCATED MY PHUIT 

 TASTE. 



BY PERCIVAL PINKERTON, PHILADELPHIA. 



Mr. Editor. My wife and I have not agreed 

 very well together about the merits of certain fruits. 

 The fact is I despise a mean taste. I like that 

 which is elegant and refined. Mrs. P. is all you 

 could wish in the drawing room, and it puzzles me 

 that she doesn't seem to have the same high-toned 

 ideas in the kitchen. You know (I suppose you do, 

 as by a reference in your last number I see you also 

 are a married man) that there will be quarrels in 

 the best regulated system of married life, and our 

 first quarrel was over some wretched Albany Seed- 

 ling strawberries. Her mother's garden grew them, 

 and she brought me a few hundred to plant in ours. 

 I had not had much experience in gardening, but 

 marrying into a suburban family I concluded to 

 start into a little gardening and matrimony together. 

 I subscribed to the Horticulturist and in a number 

 of that periodical learned that the public taste 

 was being degraded by mean fruits, and that 

 it was the duty of all who had refined ideas of what 

 was good to educate the vulgar crowd to a know- 

 ledge of what was best for them. Among straw- 

 berries the Albany was particularly marked : ' 'a hog 

 would not eat it," said the Editor. I was a little as- 

 tonished at my wife bringing me such things. I did 

 not like to plant them, nor to remonstrate either, 

 seeing as we hadn't been married long. I had been 

 taught by select paragraphs in the newspapers that 

 every thing was in knowing how to manage a wife, 

 I thought 1 could manage this thing pretty well, 

 and this was what I done. Looking over a Patent 

 office report I saw a magnificent colored plate of a 

 magnificent kind, the Peabody seedling, which ac- 

 cording to the account given by the government 

 officials was to be the all -to-be-desired in this de- 

 licious fruit. I sent away $20 for Peabody plants, 

 and when they came threw away the Albany's, 

 trusting my wife would never know the difference, 

 and that I should not have to blush when our friends 



r's ^OtttJIg. 285 



staid fo tea for setting such vulgar things as Al- 

 bany's before them. But alas ! When the time for 

 fruit care around the pesky things didn't bear any 

 worth speaking of, and my wife'^could not understand 

 it. " "Dear," says she one evening, looking sus- 

 piciously at the bed, "I think there must be some 

 mistake here. These can't be the Wilson. They 

 always bore, and yet how can it be else, for I dug 

 upthe plants myself and gave you." "It isqueer," 

 says I, reddening a little, " Meehan says (Iha4 just 

 been reading an old Agricultural paper) strawberries 

 will run into all sorts of kinds." "Meehan! 

 fiddlesticks" says she, "who's he? They never ran 

 about that way in our garden." 



I had never heard her talk so commonplace before 

 and was about to reply in good style, when she 

 picked up a small berry and said with vehemence, 

 "I believe there has been another kind planted. We 

 always have hard work to gee the ' hull ' off" the 

 Albany ; with this thing's long neck the ' hull' can 

 hardly be made to stick on." I did not know as much 

 as she, and I began to feel it, and as I had taken 

 your name in vain to Fave me and that didn't do, I 

 thought best to tell her all ! W^ell, if you ever saw 

 such a storm ! For the attempted deception I believe 

 I have never been truly forgiven, but I plead so hard 

 about " educating the public taste," that I think it 

 consoled her for the loss of strawberries that year. 

 On the main point, however, I made up my mind not 

 to give in. I have since been buying all the new 

 kinds as they have severally been brought forward 

 to "educate the public taste;" but somehow we 

 don't get many fruit, and my wife says it is hard 

 she cannot have plenty of strawberries, as her mo- 

 ther always has in her garden ; I think it is hard 

 also, but yet I think in view of the immense advan- 

 tages to the public of maintaining a high standard 

 of public taste^ better do without strawberries 

 altogether than encourage such vile things as the 

 Wilson Strawberry. 



Of course I went into grape growing. Canadian 

 Chief, Bfinckle, Rebecca, Delaware, Clara, and some 

 others, came strongly recommended by the Educa- 

 tors of public taste. I sent a draft for $100 up the 

 Hudson, so as to be sure to get the ' genuine thing.' 

 My wife asked me to add Concord, but I showed 

 her the report of a committee who went to Boston 

 to see it, and the members had all caught the dip- 

 theria by eating the berries ; I also pointed out that 

 the Editor of the Horticulturist had vetoed it ; that 

 lona Island; the centre of grape knowledge had 

 "pronounced'' against ; and indeed no one, but 

 that little fellow Ereas, of the Germantovm Tele- 

 graph had said a word in its favor. This last brought 



