advantage over its neighbor that was only two.  However small this advantage, I wanted it in my business—­my business being to make a profitable farm in quick time.  The ten acres of the home lot were to be planted with three hundred Yellow Transparent, three hundred Duchess of Oldenburg, and one hundred mixed varieties for home use.  I selected the Transparent and the Duchess on account of their disposition to bear early, and because they are good sellers in a near market, and because a fruit-wise friend was making money from an eight-year-old orchard of three thousand of these trees, and advised me not to neglect them.

My order called for thirty-four hundred three-year-old apple trees of the highest grade, to be delivered in good condition on the platform at Exeter for the lump sum of $550.  The agreement had been made in August, and the trees were to be delivered as near the 20th of October as practicable.  Apple trees comprised my entire planting for the autumn of 1895.  I wanted to do much other work in that line, but it had to be left for a more convenient season.  Hundreds of fruit trees, shade trees, and shrubs have since been planted at Four Oaks, but this first setting of thirty-four hundred apple trees was the most important as well as the most urgent.

The orchard was to be a prominent feature in the factory I was building, and as it would be slower in coming to perfection than any other part, it was wise to start it betimes.  I have kicked myself black and blue for neglecting to plant an orchard ten years earlier.  If I had done this, and had spent two hours a month in the management of it, it would now be a thing of beauty and an income-producing joy forever,—­or, at least, as long as my great-grandchildren will need it.

There is no danger of overdoing orcharding.  The demand for fruit increases faster than the supply, and it is only poor quality or bad handling that causes a slack market.  If the general farmer will become an expert orchardist, he will find that year by year his ten acres of fruit will give him a larger profit than any forty acres of grain land; but to get this result he must be faithful to his trees.  Much of the time they are caring for themselves, and for the owner, too; but there are times when they require sharp attention, and if they do not get it promptly and in the right way, they and the owner will suffer.  Fruit growing as a sole occupation requires favorable soil, climate, and market, and also a considerable degree of aptitude on the part of the manager, to make it highly profitable.  A fruit-grower in our climate must have other interests if he would make the most of his time.  While waiting for his fruit he can raise food for hens and hogs; and if he feeds hens and hogs, he should keep as many cows as he can.  He will then use in his own factory all the raw material he can raise.  This will again be returned to the land as a by-product, which will not only maintain the fertility of the farm, but even increase it.