Twenty-five cents a day to supply thirteen persons with these
necessary articles is certainly not more than must have been expended.
Still, $90 per annum is a considerable item of household expenditure,
and scanty would have been the supply it would have furnished; as it
was we had a profusion of fruit of all kinds, from the humble
gooseberry and currant to the finest peaches, nectarines, and hothouse
grapes, as well as an abundant supply of walnuts and filberts.

Had we bought all the produce of our garden, the value would have more
than paid our gardener's wages.

Nor must I omit the luxury of having beautiful flowers from the
greenhouse throughout the winter; these superfluous items did not
figure in our accounts. We should have purchased but bare necessaries,
and therefore entered but twenty-five cents a day for "garden stuff"
in our housekeeping book.

Those only who have lived in the country can appreciate the luxury of
not only having fruit and vegetables in abundance, but of having them
fresh. Early potatoes fresh dug, peas fresh gathered, salad fresh cut,
and fruit plucked just before it makes its appearance at table, are
things which cannot be purchased by the wealthiest residents in a
great city.

Not far from our residence there were large grounds, which were
cultivated with fruit and vegetables for the London market. I have
frequently seen the wagons packed for Covent Garden. The freshest that
can be procured there would be considered "stale" in the neighborhood
in which they were grown. Any fruit or vegetables in that far-famed
market must have been gathered twenty-four hours before they could