fault.

I assure those, however, who, after this preliminary parley, decide to
go further, that I will do my best to make our excursion pleasant, and
to cause as little weariness as is possible, if we are to return with
full baskets. I shall not follow the example of some thrifty people
who invite one to go "a-berrying," but lead away from fruitful nooks,
proposing to visit them alone by stealth. All the secrets I know shall
become open ones. I shall conduct the reader to all the "good places,"
and name the good things I have discovered in half a lifetime of
research. I would, therefore, modestly hint to the practical reader--
to whom "time is money," who has an eye to the fruit only, and with
whom the question of outlay and return is ever uppermost--that he may,
after all, find it to his advantage to go with us. While we stop to
gather a flower, listen to a brook or bird, or go out of our way
occasionally to get a view, he can jog on, meeting us at every point
where we "mean business." These points shall occur so often that he
will not lose as much time as he imagines, and I think he will find my
business talks business-like--quite as practical as he desires.

To come down to the plainest of plain prose, I am not a theorist on
these subjects, nor do I dabble in small fruits as a rich and fanciful
amateur, to whom it is a matter of indifference whether his
strawberries cost five cents or a dollar a quart. As a farmer, milk
must be less expensive than champagne. I could not afford a fruit farm
at all if it did not more than pay its way, and in order to win the
confidence of the "solid men," who want no "gush" or side sentiment,
even though nature suggests some warrant for it, I will give a bit of
personal experience. Five years since, I bought a farm of twenty-three
acres that for several years had. been rented, depleted, and suffered