comparison and criticism? When endeavoring to sell, one of the visiting
butchers, in reply to my petition that he would buy some of my
vegetables, said: "Well now, Marm, you see just how it is; I've got
more'n I can sell now, and women keep offering more all the way along. I
tell 'em I can't buy 'em, but I'll haul 'em off for ye if ye want to
get rid of 'em!" So much for market gardening at a distance from city
demands.

But ducks! Sydney Smith, at the close of his life, said he "had but one
illusion left, and that was the Archbishop of Canterbury." I still
believe in Crankin and duck raising. Let me see: "One pair dressed
fourteen pounds, netted forty cents per pound." I'll order one of
Crankin's "Monarch" incubators and begin a poultry farm anew.

"Dido et dux," and so do Boston epicures. I'll sell at private sales,
not for hotels! I used to imagine myself supplying one of the large
hotels and saw on the menu:

"Tame duck and apple sauce (from the famous 'Breezy Meadows' farm)." But
I inquired of one of the proprietors what he would give, and "fifteen
cents per pound for poultry dressed and delivered" gave me a combined
attack of chills and hysterics.

Think of my chickens, from those prize hens (three dollars each)--my
chickens, fed on eggs hard boiled, milk, Indian meal, cracked corn,
sun-flower seed, oats, buckwheat, the best of bread, selling at fifteen
cents per pound, and I to pay express charges! Is there, is there any
"money in hens?"

To show how a child would revel in a little rational enjoyment on a