ans and Satsuma oranges in a section where
orange growing is of very doubtful possibility. Boiling down these
objections by the promoters, they come to simply this: That the
Agricultural Department, with no motive but to tell the truth, and with
its corps of trained experts, might mislead the public, but they (the
promoters) could not possibly be mistaken in their fabulous figures
compiled for the purpose of getting money from some misinformed victim.

Proxy farming never was a success and I do not think it ever will be.
One of my friends told me a short time ago of a very successful young
pecan orchard on the gulf coast. Upon inquiry I found that it was of
reasonable size, nine years old, and that the owner had lived in it nine
years. It was not 500 acres in extent, or 1,000 acres, or 2,000 acres,
but about 20 acres. Last summer I went into a beautiful apple orchard in
Southern Indiana and saw about forty acres of trees bending to the
ground with delicious Grimes Golden apples. On that particular day there
were great crowds of people walking among the trees and admiring the
fruit. I too walked among the trees a short time, but of greater
interest to me than the trees was the old, gray-haired man who had made
the orchard. The trees could not talk, but he could, and he told the
story of the years of care, and diligence, and work, and thought, and
patience, that showed why it is not possible to cover the mountains of a
state with orchards bringing almost immediate and fabulous incomes.

Some time ago I stood talking to the old superintendent of the Botanical
Garden in Washington--William R. Smith, now deceased--and while
discussing with him the requisites for tree culture, he said "Young man,
you have left out the most important one of them all," When I asked him
what I had left out, he said "above all things it takes the eye of the
master." So it does, and the master is he whose vigilance is continual,
who watches each tree as if it were a growing child--as indeed it is, a
child of the forests--who has the care and the patience, and who is not
dazzled by the glitter of the dollar, but who loves trees because they
are trees.

Theoretically, one can figure great successes in big horticultural
development propositions, but these figures rest upon theory and not
fact. It would be difficult to state all the reasons why I have a firm
conviction that such big schemes of every kind will fall, but I believe
this conviction is s