can hardly succeed without the best books by practical men. Do not
let some experienced ignoramus talk you out of experimenting under
their guidance. You will learn little without experience, and unless
you have the grower's instinct, you will learn less without books.

Don't be hypnotized by long experience or by success. Hardly anybody
knows his own business. You must have noticed that few of the people
you buy of or sell to, know any more of their goods than you do.

It is just the same with trades. Hardly a barber knows that he
should not shave you against the grain of the skin. Even the cat
won't stand being rubbed up the wrong way; but the barber never
thought of that.

We lawyers and the doctors are supposed to be thorough in our own
field--I said lately to one of the ablest men at the New York Bar,
"About one lawyer in a hundred knows his business." He said, "That
is a gross overestimate." Shortly after I talked with three Judges,
one of the City Court, one of the Supreme Court, and one of the
United States Circuit, and they each agreed that my friend's remark
was about true, and that in most cases litigants would do as well
without lawyers as with them.

If that is true, what chance is there that an uneducated man who has
"raised garden sass ever since he was a boy, and seen his father do
it before him," can teach you correctly?

Men learn very slowly by experience, because no two experiences are
exactly alike, unless they perceive and apply the principles under
the experience.

An intelligent man accustomed to investigation can learn more about
a specialty in a week's study than an untrained practitioner can
believe in a year.

What the untrained teacher can tell us is of little account; what he
shows us is another matter.

Therefore get help who know that they don't know anything about a
garden and who consequently will do with a will exactly what you
tell them to do; such labor is cheap--why should you pay extravagant
prices for skill to a man who has succeeded so poorly that he can
only earn day's wages? You can get much better knowledge at less
cost from a book. Study and put your knowledge into practice
yourself, where you see promise of a profit.

Almost every crop can be made a specialty. In proportion as special
crops are profitable when conditions are right, so are they sources
of loss when things go wrong. If, after your first season in the
country, some special crop takes your fancy, g