y encouraging to me, and I made a full report at
home of what I had thus learned. I was rejoiced at being able to carry
out my plan in spite of our ill-natured neighbors. Besides this, the
conversation referred to showed us that their pretence of my wanting to
ruin their business by raising strawberries was only a piece of mean
and unreasonable jealousy,--that there was no real likelihood of such an
event occurring, inasmuch as the demand was apparently unlimited. It is
very probable, however, that it was from pure ill-temper that they
refused to sell me any plants, an unwillingness to see us do well, not
from any apprehension of an overstocking of the market; as long
experience must have taught them, equally with the market-woman, that
that was a comparative impossibility.

There were various impediments to be overcome, even after ascertaining
that we were sure of selling all we could produce. Those who are
experienced in horticulture will smile at my simplicity and ignorance,
and wonder how so many difficulties beset me. But even they must have
had some sort of probation, which they overlook when reading this
history of mine. We are all, at some period, mere beginners in
everything. There were hundreds of visitors to our neighbor's garden who
had never seen a strawberry-plant until then. When mine were fairly
started, I witnessed the same display of ignorance in others who came to
visit us. Some ladies, occasionally gentlemen even, supposed the vines
ran up trees, and that the fruit was gathered like cherries. It is
possible that this may be read by some gentle spirit, some anxious
inquirer after a brighter pathway through a checkered life, some one of
my own sex whose aspirations may be in harmony with mine, and whose
fortunes may have been infinitely more unpropitious, in the hope of
gathering from my humble experience sufficient light to guide her in a
similar undertaking. I doubt not there are thousands in our country
whose tastes would lead them in the same direction, did opportunity
offer, and were the requisite knowledge at hand. I therefore record all
the trials that impeded my progress. When difficulties are known
beforehand, they may often be avoided.

I was unwilling to lose a day from the factory by walking several miles
into the country to visit the man who supplied my friendly market-woman
with strawberries, and from whom the plants were to come. But while
waiting for him to bring them in, together with