many other impositions. They sounded very cheap also, -peach-trees at three dollars a hundred, when the price is usually ten or twelve. Now, suppose I were to set out a hundred of these trees, saving five or six dollars in the price, and, after cultivating them two or three years, should then discover that, instead of their producing the fine fruit that was promised, it was scarcely good enough for the pigs? There would be the loss of at least two years' time and labor, and all the money I had paid, besides the vexation which every one feels on discovering that he has been cheated. It would be even worse in the case of pear-trees, for there one has to wait longer for them to come into bearing. By saving ten cents in the purchase of a tree, he may find that, instead of the Bartlett he bargained for, he has been cheated into the purchase and cultivation of a choke-pear. It is the poorest sort of economy to buy cheap trees; and it is sometimes dangerous to get them, even at full prices, from persons in whose character you do not have full confidence. But there are others who think just as I do on this subject, as I will show you."

Taking from his pocket a number of "The Country Gentleman," he read to them the following article:

"No man can obtain anything valuable without paying its full price. If he makes a purchase of a fine horse for a small sum, he will probably find that the horse has some hidden disease, heaves, founder, spavin, ringbone, -or else that he has obtained the name of a cheating horse-dealer, which is still more undesirable. If he attempts to build a house at a lower contract price than the builder can afford it, he will ultimately discover that a good deal of bad material has been used, or that he has a long string of extras, which, by dexterous contrivance, have been thrust in. It is so in buying fruittrees. If a purchaser finds a lot offered at low retail prices, he will probably discover them to have been badly cultivated, neglected, moss-covered, or to have been carelessly dug up, with chopped roots, -or to consist of some unsalable varieties, or to have been poorly packed, or the roots left exposed till they have become dry and good for nothing.

"Now, suppose a purchase is made of one of these trees at five cents below the regular market price among the best nurserymen. The owner congratulates himself on having effected a saving of the sum of five cents. Let us see how much he is likely to lose. If the tree is stunted, it will be at least three years before it can attain the vigor of its thrifty compeer. In other words, he sells three years of growth, three years of attention, if it gets any, three years of occupancy of the ground, and three years of delayed expectation, for the sum of five cents. Or suppose the tree has been purchased below price because it is the last in a pedler's wagon, and has been dried or frozen. The owner pays for the tree, digs a hole, and sets it out; it will probably die, in which case he loses only what he has paid, the labor expended, and one year of lost time and expectation. He has gained nothing. If the tree lives, the former estimate will then apply. Or, again, suppose that he buys a tree, and saves five cents, as aforesaid, because the quality, or the sort, or the honesty of the dealer, as to its genuineness, may be questionable. After several years of waiting and labor, it turns out to be a poor sort, and the tree continues to bear this poor fruit for thirty years to come. The fruit, being unsalable, will probably bring no more than ten cents a bushel. In thirty years the average annual crop will be about three bushels, or ninety bushels in all, equal to nine dollars total value. But if, instead of this miserable specimen, the purchaser procures a tree at full price, and one of the most productive and marketable varieties, the crop will always sell in market at twenty-five, and sometimes fifty, cents a bushel; and for the whole thirty years will average at least eight bushels annually, -sixty dollars for the thirty years, at the lowest computation. There is a loss of fifty-one dollars made by purchasing the cheap tree, all for the sake of saving five cents."

While the hoeing of this cornfield was going on, there was continual opportunity for observing the difference in growth of that end of the rows which received the drainage from the barn-yard. The plants were double the height of the others, and there was a deep, rank green that was nowhere else per

ceptible. Here too the weeds grew taller and stouter, as well as more abundantly. Uncle Benny had always taught the boys that the greatness of a farmer's crop was not to be measured by the number of his acres, but by the thoroughness with which he enriched his land, and the care bestowed upon the crop. His theory was to put a large amount of labor on a small amount of land. The two-acre cornfield was an excellent illustration of his theories. The boys saw for themselves that in that portion which received the washing from the barn-yard they would have a far greater crop than from the other portion, because of the full supply of manure which it received. Whenever he came to a remarkably fine hill of corn, the old man would tell them that the earth was really of no great use except to afford a standing-place for plants while the farmer was feeding them, and that money laid out in manure must not be considered as money lost, because it always reproduced itself in the crop. He rarely gave chemical reasons, or used scientific terms, as the boys had had no knowledge of them.

But he explained how it was that plants acquired their growth. The earth kept them in an upright position, but they grew by feeding on the fertilizing materials added to the soil, from water, and from the air which surrounded them. Both air and water were indispensable; hence the necessity for rain, and for the continued stirring up of the soil by harrowing the surface, so that the air should penetrate to the roots, and the water, in a heavy shower, should soak into the ground, instead of running off and wetting only the surface. Thus, if the day's hoeing was useful to the growing crop, it was made equally instructive to the minds of the boys, for a practical lecture was delivered on the spot, with fact and illustration united. Lessons thus learned are usually the most instructive, as well as most likely to be remembered.

When the day's work was done, the old man sat down upon the stump of an apple-tree to rest, the boys gathering about him, and Tony asked, "Uncle Benny, how much money can an acre of ground be made to produce?"

"Ah," replied the old man, "you ask me too much. It would require a great book to answer that question, and even then it would be only half answered. I do not think the capacity of an acre of ground has ever been ascertained. You do not put the question in the right way. It is not the acre that produces the crop, but the man who cultivates the acre. All agricultural history is full of instances of this being the case. There are families who starve on fifty acres, while there are others who live comfortably on one or two. But another time we 'll look a little further into this question, for it is one that a farmer's boy should have answered as promptly as possible. There are grown-up people, too, who would be benefited by examining the subject more closely than they have been in the habit of doing."

Author of "Ten Acres Enough."

PUZZLES PROBLEMS

CHARADES.

My FIRST and my LAST each two words Where, as he gazed with wondering face,

My whole is the name of a very interest-My 1, 9, 8, is to cut off.

My 13, 5, 16, 9, 12, signifies force and en- My 23, 17, 3, 30, is left after making

ANSWERS.

6. Car-pet. 8. Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty. [(50 L) (oven) ot s (leap) (50=L) est thou (comet) (op over ty).]