Taking our experiences in many hundreds of trees of various kinds in and out of season, and including the time when we were learning the art, our total loss has been something less than 10 per cent., probably more nearly 6 or 7 per cent.  A whole tree-moving campaign in a single season has been accomplished with a loss of about 3 per cent.  I am willing to admit that in the case of the larger trees the growth has been retarded perhaps two years, but this is a small matter, for people no longer young wish to get the effects they desire at once, and the modern tree-mover does it.  We have grouped and arranged clumps of big spruces to fit the purposes we were aiming for, and sometimes have completely covered a hillside with them.  Oaks we have not been successful with except when comparatively young, and we don’t try to move oaks and hickories when they have come near to maturity; but we have made some successful experiments with bass wood, and one of these we have moved three times without injury.  Birches have generally baffled us, but evergreens, except cedars, have been almost invariably successfully handled.

This planning for good views must have been an early passion with me.  I remember when I was hardly more than a boy I wanted to cut away a big tree which I thought interfered with the view from the windows of the dining-room of our home.  I was for cutting it down, but some other members of the family objected, though my dear mother, I think, sympathized with me, as she said one day:  “You know, my son, we have breakfast at eight o’clock, and I think if the tree were felled some time before we sat down to table, there would probably be no great complaint when the family saw the view which the fallen tree revealed.”

So it turned out.

CHAPTER II

THE DIFFICULT ART OF GETTING

To my father I owe a great debt in that he himself trained me to practical ways.  He was engaged in different enterprises; he used to tell me about these things, explaining their significance; and he taught me the principles and methods of business.  From early boyhood I kept a little book which I remember I called Ledger A—­and this little volume is still preserved—­containing my receipts and expenditures as well as an account of the small sums that I was taught to give away regularly.

Naturally, people of modest means lead a closer family life than those who have plenty of servants to do everything for them.  I count it a blessing that I was of the former class.  When I was seven or eight years old I engaged in my first business enterprise with the assistance of my mother.  I owned some turkeys, and she presented me with the curds from the milk to feed them.  I took care of the birds myself, and sold them all in business-like fashion.  My receipts were all profit, as I had nothing to do with the expense account, and my records were kept as carefully as I knew how.