stones!
Nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine.

Our most interesting call in Winchester is upon a lady who is the owner
and manager of a farm of 8000 apple trees, 7000 of which she has set out
herself within the past five years, "every tree in a dynamited hole,
every tree pruned by a government expert." She tells us that all she
knows of apple culture she has learned by a careful study of government
pamphlets. Her orchard is about five miles from town, and she drives out
daily from her pleasant home. She tells us that her apples are sent to
Jersey City and there kept in cold storage. Late in the season she sells
them, getting sometimes as high as $7.50 a barrel toward the end of the
winter. As we talk with her we wonder why it is that more women do not
go in for apple culture. Surely it is a delightful vocation, clean,
healthful, invigorating, and profitable.

Our friend tells us laughingly that so far as her experience goes, negro
servants are "still proving to their former owners that they are free."
She relates an experience with a young negro maid, who after eight
months of happy service with her, during which time she had the best of
training, suddenly left her. She took a new position just across the
street and for exactly the same wages as her old situation had given
her. When her former mistress asked her why it was that she was leaving,
she giggled and said demurely, "I mus' do de bes' I kin fo' myse'f."

From Winchester we drive to Staunton over a fine road. From the fine
country about Winchester, dotted with beautiful orchards, down through
Harrisonburg in the midst of great grain and hay farms, we are passing
through the famous Shenandoah Valley. We see it at a disadvantage, for
the months of dry weather have burned the fields brown and dry and
increased the dust of the roads. But it is beautiful still, a fair and
prosperous farming country. We pass through Harrisonburg on court day,
and the town is filled with farmers who make of this day a general
market day.

As we approach Staunton we come again into orchard country. We have been
passing through many miles of farms devoted to grain. On the left, as
one enters Staunton, is Chilton Hall, standing high above the town.
Chilton Hall, kept by a woman, is a fine new private house, transformed
into a tourist hostel. It looks most attractive. We go on into Staunton
as we wish to be in the heart of the town. We establish ourselves very
comfortably for a few day