All these little matters are the result of personal experience: not, of course, acquired in a single season; for even after the strawberry-grower has planted one bed and harvested one crop, he will discover that he is still only on the threshold of this branch of horticulture. Many of them are the fruit of subsequent experience, while much of all I ever learned is the result of careful study of as many authorities as I was able to consult. Study combined with practice and close observation, together with a passionate determination to learn, and hope ever stimulating to perseverance, has been with me the secret of success. I was now at the close of my first year's experiment. My whole acre was in the best condition. The plants set out the first year were certain to produce twice the former yield, such being the universal experience with the strawberry; while now, with double the extent of ground, and the first half-acre stocked with many times the number of plants originally set, the promise was highly encouraging. I could think of no possible chance of disappointment but a pinching frost that might destroy the blossoms, or a parching drought that might blast the fruit. No work that I had been required to perform had been too hard for me. Most of it had been recreation, while all had been healthful to the body and grateful to the mind. It is true that now and then my hands had been a little roughened by wielding the heavy garden-tools; but we had already determined that our next year's profits should furnish us with new and lighter ones. Thus, satisfied with myself, and buoyant with hope, the winter came upon us; but I passed through it without impatience or anxiety, both my sister and myself continuing the while steadily at the factory. SCIENTIFIC FARMING.