toil. The boy who might have lived a sturdy, healthful, independent
life among his native hills is a bleached and sallow youth measuring
ribbons and calicoes behind a city counter. The girl who might have
been the mistress of a tree-shadowed country house disappears under
much darker shadows in town. But for their early home life, so meagre
and devoid of interest, they might have breathed pure air all their
days.

Not the least among the means of making a home attractive would be a
well-maintained fruit garden. The heart and the stomach have been
found nearer together by the metaphysicians than the physiologists,
and if the "house-mother," as the Germans say, beamed often at her
children over a great dish of berries flanked by a pitcher of
unskimmed milk, not only good blood and good feeling would be
developed, but something that the poets call "early ties."

There is one form of gambling or speculation that, within proper
limits, is entirely innocent and healthful--the raising of new
seedling fruits and the testing of new varieties. In these pursuits
the elements of chance, skill, and judgment enter so evenly that they
are an unfailing source of pleasurable excitement. The catalogues of
plant, tree, and seed dealers abound in novelties. The majority of
them cannot endure the test of being grown by the side of our well-
known standard kinds, but now and then an exceedingly valuable
variety, remarkable for certain qualities or peculiarly adapted to
special localities and uses, is developed. There is not only an
unfailing pleasure in making these discoveries, but often a large
profit. If, three or four years ago, a country boy had bought a dozen
Sharpless strawberry plants, and propagated from them, he might now
obtain several hundred dollars from their increased numbers. Time only