But vexatious as all this certainly was, these people were greatly to be pitied. As regarded intelligent horticulture they were altogether in the dark. They took no agricultural papers, and books on gardening were equally unknown upon their table,--the entire literature of the household consisting of the penny newspaper, with piles of sensation novels which the daughters had accumulated. How, from such a dearth of reading suitable to their vocation, could they be expected to be better informed than they were? or, with the peculiar caustic temper that ran through the family, to make friends who might be instructive companions? In agricultural knowledge I was really their superior, having an exhaustless fund of information in the miscellaneous collection I had picked up at the grocer's, of the diversified contents of which there had never been a more painstaking student. By reference to such a source, they would have learned how absurd was their selfish idea that it was possible for me, or even a hundred like me, to overdo the business of raising strawberries, no matter where established, but especially when the fruit was consumed on the very spot where it was produced. I know that this apprehension of producing too much fruit is a mistake of many persons about embarking in the business. But further knowledge invariably corrects it; there is never an over-supply. If, at the beginning of my inquiries, the fear crossed my own mind, it was dissipated by a single conversation with the widow in the market-house.