practical papers—market gardening . 423 
with different manures, at different times of planting, etc., and at 
the end of five years, I find that they have been of uniform good 
quality, and that the yield has averaged say 400 bushels per acre, 
I have shown that upon good soil, and with good cultivation, 
they are a profitable potato; but suppose the yield only averages 
100 bushels per acre, I have shown that either they are not a reli¬ 
able potato, or that, if they are, I don’t know how to raise them. 
Many of your experiments will prove failures to a greater or less 
extent, and some of them very annoying ones; but you must bear 
in mind, that when you have made one that is a success, you have 
not only benefited yourself, but the whole community in which 
you live; and it surely will be a pleasure to you to know that 
you have been the means of adding to the wealth as well as the 
comfort of those about you. If it is not, I hope that you will 
never enter my profession. 
As I have stated in another place, you will ever find nature true 
to its kind, and your business is simply to assist her, and enable 
her to do her best. Hence the command to dress the garden and 
to keep it. And whether upon the garden or the farm, when you 
have so done your work that your soil is capable of doing, no 
more or no better than it is doing, then you have become a per¬ 
fect cultivator. Do you ask me, when will that time come ? Hot 
in your day, nor in mine. Possibly in the far distant future ; for, 
gentlemen, I have a vast amount of faith in the world’s future ; 
not only in that, but in the future of our Northwest, and its read¬ 
ing, thinking, wide-awake, energetic people. 
With these brief hints, I must leave the subject. I have en-- 
deavored to be plain and practical. I have not intended to hold 
out any visionary inducements to any one to commence the busi¬ 
ness. On the other hand, where there is a reasonable prospect of 
success, I should be sorry to keep any one who had a taste for it 
from going into it, for it is a pleasant life and a pleasant business 
to follow. You may not, and probably will not, make any great 
show or mark in the world, and when your life’s work is finished, 
no rattling of drums or booming of cannon will proclaim to the 
world that you are being laid in your final resting place, but per¬ 
haps there will be some poor widow in the company who will say, 
he taught me how to raise good crops in my little garden, and 
