"Your next work, Merton, will be to collect all your refuse trimmings, and the brush lying about, into a few great heaps; and by and by we'll burn these, too, and gather up the ashes carefully, for I've read and heard all my life that there is nothing better for fruit then wood-ashes. Some day, I hope, we can begin to put money in the bank; for I intend to give all a chance to earn money for themselves, after they have done their share toward our general effort to live and thrive. The next best thing to putting money in the bank is the gathering and saving of everything that will make the ground richer. In fact, all the papers and books that I've read this winter agree that as the farmer's land grows rich he grows rich." CHAPTER XX RASPBERRY LESSONS It must be remembered that I had spent all my leisure during the winter in reading and studying the problem of our country life. Therefore I knew that March was the best month for pruning trees, and I had gained a fairly correct idea how to do this work. Until within the last two or three years of his life, old Mr. Jamison had attended to this task quite thoroughly; and thus little was left for me beyond sawing away the boughs that had recently died, and cutting out the useless sprouts on the larger limbs. Before leaving the city I had provided myself with such tools as I was sure I should need; and finding a ladder under a shed, I attacked the trees vigorously. The wind had almost died out, and I knew I must make the most of all still days in this gusty month. After playing around for a time, Winnie and Bobsey concluded that gathering and piling up my prunings would be as good fun as anything else; and so I had helpers again. By the middle of the afternoon Mr. Jones appeared, and I was glad to see him, for there were some kinds of work about which I wanted his advice. At one end of the garden were several rows of blackcap raspberry bushes, which had grown into an awful snarl. The old canes that had borne fruit the previous season were still standing, ragged and unsightly; the new stalks that would bear the coming season sprawled in every direction; and I had found that many tips of the branches had grown fast in the ground. I took my neighbor to see this briery wilderness, and asked his advice. "Have you got a pair of pruning-nippers?" he asked. Before going to the house to get them, I blew a shrill whistle to summon Merton, for I wished him also to hear all that Mr. Jones might say. I carried a little metallic whistle one blast on which was for Merton, two for Winnie, and three for Bobsey. When they heard this call they were to come as fast as their feet could carry them. Taking the nippers, Mr. Jones snipped off from one-third to one-half the length of the branches from one of the bushes and cut out the old dead cane.