ant an orchard, if for no other reason, that he may
have the pleasure of caring for it, and for the companionship of the
trees. This was the second year of growth for my orchard, and I was
gratified by the evidences of thrift and vigor. Fine, spreading heads
adorned the tops of the stubs of trees that had received such
(apparently) cruel treatment eighteen months before. The growth of these
two seasons convinced me that the four-year-old root and the
three-year-old stem, if properly managed, have greater possibilities of
rapid development than roots or stems of more tender age. I think I made
no mistake in planting three-year-old trees.

As I worked in my orchard I could not help looking forward to the time
when the trees would return a hundred-fold for the care bestowed upon
them. They would begin to bring returns, in a small way, from the fourth
year, and after that the returns would increase rapidly. It is safe to
predict that from the tenth to the fortieth year a well-managed orchard
will give an average yearly income of $100 an acre above all expenses,
including interest on the original cost. A fifty-acre orchard of
well-selected apple trees, near a first-class market and in intelligent
hands, means a net income of $5000, taking one year with another, for
thirty or forty years. What kind of investment will pay better? What
sort of business will give larger returns in health and pleasure?

I do not mean to convey the idea that forty years is the life of an
orchard; hundreds of years would be more correct. As trees die from
accident or decrepitude, others should take their places. Thus the lease
of life becomes perpetual in hands that are willing to keep adding to
the soil more than the trees and the fruit take from it. Comparatively
few owners of orchards do this, and those who belong to the majority
will find fault with my figures; but the thinking few, who do not expect
to enjoy the fat of the land without making a reasonable return, will
say that I am too conservative,--that a well-placed, well-cared-for,
well-selected, and well-marketed orchard will do much better than my
prophecy. Nature is a good husbandman so far as she goes, but her scheme
contemplates only the perpetuation of the tree, by seeds or by other
means. Nature's plan is to give to each specimen a nutritive ration.
Anything beyond this is thrown away on the individual, and had better be
used for the multiplying of specimens. When man comes to ask s