18 
§E£©-T1I!E AH© HARVEST* 
with each and every one in a manner that 
shall more than satisfy all who patronize 
us. If mistakes occur please treat them as 
mistakes and remember that we are anxious 
to correct them if given a chance. If you 
have any reason for feeling dissatisfied we 
shall esteem it a favor to be informed of it 
and given a chance to satisf}^ you. 
We have a great deal to do and to think 
of at this season of the year, and corre¬ 
spondents must not think it strange if we 
give short answers to letters which they 
think deserve more attention. All seed or¬ 
ders should always be upon separate sheets 
from letters or correspondence upon any 
other subject. It is very annoying and 
greatly productive of errors to have a cor¬ 
respondent mixing up things as some do. 
When we get a rambling letter upon gener¬ 
al subjects with an order for seeds, a list 
of words in competition for a prize, sub¬ 
scription to a newspaper or two, a question 
to which the writer wants a personal reply 
by mail and a communication for Seed- 
Time and Harvest all jumbled upon one 
sheet of paper, and particular pains taken 
to write upon both sides of that so as to 
preclude the possibility of separating these 
different subjects and sending each to its 
proper department, it is not strange that 
some of the subjects get neglected. Our 
business has grown to such dimensions 
that one pair of hands cannot put up all 
the seeds, book and till all the orders, an¬ 
swer all the questions, write ail the edito¬ 
rials and other articles, set up all the type, 
attend to the engine, feed the presses, 
print and mail all the catalogues and copies 
of Seed-Time and Harvest and various 
other species of work, all of which are done 
under our roof. Your humble servant 
tries to make his hands do as much of it as 
possible, hardly taking time to eat and 
sleep, but if it were not for the helping 
hands of his willing and trusty assistants 
he fears you would find more frequent 
cause for complaint than you ever yet 
have. Besides he has some home duties 
which cannot be entirely overshadowed by 
the clouds of business. Four little faces 
might frequently be seen at a certain win¬ 
dow a quarter of a mile from our office 
watching for “papa, and who would be so 
cruel as to rob them of the pleasure of a 
half hour’s visit before being laid away for 
the night? And then—ought we to tell it 
right out here in meeting—only a fortnight 
ago a fifth—a wee little stranger came, and 
although small of his age and young for 
his size, he too has made a deal of trouble, 
but there is no doubt, kind friends, that if 
we bear with him for a time he will some 
day help to fill your orders and answer 
your letters and repay it all. But here 
comes Nellie—she is the young lady who 
takes our ideas from hasty pencilings and 
puts them into type—with a call for more 
‘•copy” and if we get this postscript into 
the March number she must have it to-day, 
so we again ask all our kind friends to bear 
with all our blunders, excuse our errors, 
pardon our short comings—and—and— 
and—send on your orders. Will do the 
best we can by you, anywav. 
A MONO OUR EXCHANGES. 
So many good things in Ihe way of lit¬ 
erature reach our table that it is almost im¬ 
possible to mention all of them. We can 
only speak of a few of them this month and 
of others as we have opportunity 
The Popular Science Monthly, published by D, 
Appleton & Co., N. Y., fills a niche left vacant by all 
other publications. Class journals devoted to spe¬ 
cialties in mechanical, philosophical and art subjects 
are almost innumerable, but it is reserved for this 
excellent magazine to oTer a dish of scientific sub¬ 
jects sufficiently interesting to be relished by the 
plowboy or the professor in the university. $5 a year. 
If ever there was an interesting and attractive 
Magazine it is Wide Awake, published by D. Loth- 
rop & Co., Boston. The elegant engravings and 
beautiful lettering, printed on 150 pages of the finest 
book paper render it sought for by every appreciative 
youth, and many older ones cannot resist the temp¬ 
tation to while away an hour or so in perusing its 
pages. The truly artistic character of the Mechanic¬ 
al work combined with the high literary merit of its 
contents, renders it a desirable substitute for much 
of the trash usually found in many of the so-called 
youth’s papers. 
One of those most interesting tales of life in Aus¬ 
tralia, written by W. H. Thornes, and now being 
published in Ballou’s Magazine, attracts thousands 
of readers and will undoubtedly give that excellent 
Magazine a “big run.” Much other interesting mat¬ 
ter, consisting of tales, and sketches of history and 
travels, make Ballou’s one of the cheapest magazines 
