ofessed to be also an expert in planting vegetables, I bought a
supply of seeds in the city and intrusted them to him, assuring
myself that once in the ground the rest of the work would fall to
me; if I could not keep a garden patch fifty feet square clear of
weeds, I had better abandon the business at once, and all hopes of
making a living out of scientific gardening. The beginning was an
unfortunate one. The weather happened to be first very wet, and then
so dry and hot that my vegetables were unable to break their way
through the baked earth. When my peas and beans still gave no signs
after being in the ground for two weeks, I discovered that the whole
work would have to be done over again. A Presidential campaign was
beginning, which kept me in town often late at night, so that the
chief labor of the garden fell to my faithful Irishman, who got far
more satisfaction out of it than I did. The vegetables finally did
come up above the surface, and many an evening I finished a hard
day's work by pumping and carrying hundreds of gallons of water to
pour upon potato plants, tomatoes, beans, and other things which a
friend of mine, an expert in such matters, assured me were
curiosities of malformation and backwardness. My Irishman told me
that it was all for want of manure, and by his advice I bought six
dollars' worth of manure from a neighboring stable, and had it
spread over the ground. The bills for my garden were meanwhile
mounting up. I had begun the spring with a garden ledger, keeping an
accurate account of every penny spent, and hoping to put on the
other side of the page a tremendous list of fine vegetables. The
accounts are before me now, and I presume that every one who has
been through the same experience has preserved some such record."
(Naturally, if he began that way.) ("Liberty and a Living," by P. G.
Hubert.)

If your idea of farming is to bury "some seeds" in untilled ground,
regardless of suitability, and "wait till they come up," you will
wait in vain for a decent crop.

Says Professor Roberts in the "Farmstead" (Macmillan), "Mushrooms
sell at fifty cents per pound; maize for one half cent per pound.
Why? Because anybody, even a squaw, can raise maize, but only a
specially skilled gardener can succeed in mushroom culture."

But enough has been said to show that you must cultivate with
brains. The Germans say, "What your head won't do, your legs have
to."

"We'll have a little farm,
A pig, a