y own strawberries, but
then those of my successful competitor were quite as often in my mind.
How this thing could happen, and why one cultivator should thus
anticipate all others, and command the market when prices were so
enormous, I could not then understand. But I resolved to have the matter
explained. Next morning I was up at daybreak and at the widow's stand.
She was already there, and was engaged in putting the little fixtures in
order on which her daily stock of fruits and vegetables was to be
displayed. No customers were yet visible in this early gray of the
morning, and there was an opportunity for me to make the momentous
inquiries I desired. But there was the same great wooden tray, again up
with at least a bushel of strawberries. My first question was as to
where they came from.

"From Baltimore, Miss," was the reply. "You know they ripen there two
weeks earlier than here. It is farther south, the climate is warmer, and
they come here on the railroad until the price falls so low as to make
it unprofitable to send them. But they are a small, poor berry, not
equal to yours, and will not be in your way. When yours come to market,
these will be all gone. People buy these only because they can get no
better ones."

Here was a mountain of discouragement removed at once. I had not been
forestalled by a neighbor, but only anticipated by some one who had
taken advantage of a warmer climate. Besides, the widow repeated her
cheering assurance of the year before, that she could readily dispose of
all I might have,--not, however, at the high prices she then was
getting, because the same sun that was to ripen mine would ripen those
of all others around me, and bring them into market at the same time;
but if mine should be better than others, she would be able to secure
better prices for them.

I went home to breakfast with a lighter heart, and that day at the
factory made up for the deficiencies of the preceding. But since then,
after the experience of an entire season, I have looked carefully into
this matter of the importance of being first in the market, and I find
it runs through and influences almost every department of horticulture
which is pursued as a source of gain. The struggle everywhere appears to
be for precedence. The horticultural world knows that there is a waiting
community of consumers who stand impatient for the advent of the first
ripened fruits. It knows that with these the price occasions no
he