lure.
They are unlike only in this, that the pathway of the one is lined with
deception, crookedness and chicanery; of the other, with blasted hopes
based upon good intentions but bad information. Both lead to the
self-same sepulcher which in the distance looks white and beautiful but
when reached is filled with the bones of dead men.

There is not much difference after all, when one comes right down to the
facts, between the crook who starts out deliberately to get one's money
and the fellow who starts out in ignorance and makes great promises of
returns that he knows nothing about. Both succeed in getting one's money
and both succeed in misleading those who have a desire to lay aside
something for their old days. We naturally feel more charity for him who
has good intentions, but who fails, than for him who starts out with bad
intentions. But, after all, only results count.

Did you ever receive the literature of one of these various concerns
that has pecan or apple orchards to sell? How beautiful their schemes
look on paper! With what exquisite care they have worked out the
pictures and the language and the columns of figures showing the
profits! While writing this article I have before me a prospectus of a
certain pecan company that prints columns of attractive figures.
Fearful, however, that the figures would not convince, it has resorted
to all the various schemes of the printers' art in its portrayal of the
prospective profits from a grove set to pecans and Satsuma oranges, and
it tells you in conclusion that it guarantees by a bond, underwritten by
a responsible trust company, the fulfillment of all its representations.
Yet what are the facts? Their lands are located in a section where the
thermometer falls to a point that makes highly improbable the profitable
growing of Satsuma oranges. And all their figures are merely estimates
of the wildest character, printed in attractive columns, based upon
nothing.

As a member of the National Nut Growers Association I was this year
chairman of the committee on orchard records. I sent out blanks, with
lists of questions, to many prominent nut growers to see if I could
secure data upon which to base a report to the association. The replies
I received showed the existence of some very promising young orchards of
small size, well cared for, but they also showed that there was no such
thing as an intelligent report upon which reliable data as to the
bearing records of orc