in small fruits, and know their value. They enjoy them amazingly at a
friend's table, and even buy some when they are cheap., A little
greater outlay and a little intelligent effort would give them an
abundant supply from their own grounds. In a vague way they are aware
of this, and reproach themselves for their negligence, but time passes
and there is no change for the better. Why? I don't know. There are
men who rarely kiss their wives and children. For them the birds sing
unheeded and even unheard; flowers become mere objects, and sunsets
suggest only "quitting time." In theory they believe in all these
things. What can be said of them save that they simply jog on to-day
as they did yesterday, ever dimly hoping at some time or other "to
live up to their privileges"? But they usually go on from bad to
worse, until, like their neglected strawberry-beds, they are "turned
under."

In cities not a hundred miles from my farm there are abodes of wealth
with spacious grounds, where, in many instances, scarcely any place is
found for small fruits. "It is cheaper and easier to buy them," it is
said. This is a sorry proof of civilization. There is no economy in
the barbaric splendor of brass buttons and livery, but merely a little
trouble (I doubt about money) is saved on the choicest luxuries of the
year. The idea of going out of their rural paradises to buy half-stale
fruit! But this class is largely at the mercy of the "hired man," or
his more disagreeable development, the pretentious smatterer, who, so
far from possessing the knowledge that the English, Scotch, or German
gardeners acquire in their long, thorough training, is a compound of
ignorance and prejudice. To hide his barrenness of mind he gives his
soul to rare plants, clipped lawns, but stints the family in all
things save his impudence. If he tells his obsequious employers that
it is easier and cheaper to buy their fruit than to raise it, of