however, is summed up in the words, "Do small fruits pay?" To meet the
needs of these two classes is one of the great aims of this work; and
it is my most earnest wish not to mislead by high-colored pictures.

Small fruits pay many people well; and unless location, soil, or
climate is hopelessly against one, the degree of profit will depend
chiefly upon his skill, judgment and industry. The raising of small
fruits is like other callings, in which some are getting rich, more
earning a fair livelihood, and not a few failing. It is a business in
which there is an abundance of sharp, keen competition; and ignorance,
poor judgment, and shiftless, idle ways will be as fatal as in the
workshop, store, or office.

Innumerable failures result from inexperience. I will give one extreme
example, which may serve to illustrate, the sanguine mental condition
of many who read of large returns in fruit culture. A young man who
had inherited a few hundred dollars wrote me that he could hire a
piece of land for a certain amount, and he wished to invest the
balance--every cent--in plants, thus leaving himself no capital with
which to continue operations, but expecting that a speedy crop would
lift him at once into a prosperous career. I wrote that under the
circumstances I could not supply him--that it would be about the same
as robbery to do so; and advised him to spend several years with a
practical and successful fruit grower and learn the business.

Most people enter upon this calling in the form of a wedge; but only
too many commence at the blunt end, investing largely at once in
everything, and therefore their business soon tapers down to nothing.
The wise begin at the point of the wedge and develop their calling
naturally, healthfully--learning, by experience and careful