business has grown to a magnitude truly gigantic, because the market for fruit has been annually growing larger, and no business enlarges itself unless it is proved to be profitable.

The market cannot be glutted with good fruit. The multiplication of mouths to consume it is far more rapid than the increase of any supply that growers can effect. Within ten years the masses have had a slight taste of choice fruits, and but little more. Indulgence has only served to whet their appetites. The more of them there is offered in the market, the more will there be consumed. Every huckster in her shamble, every vender of peanuts in the street, will testify to this. The modern art of semi-cookery for fruit, and of preserving it in cans and jars, has made sale for enormous quantities of those choicer kinds which return the highest profit to the grower. It is in the grain-market that panic often rages, but never in the fruit-market. If it ever enters the latter, the struggle is to obtain the fruit, not to get rid of it.

The proper choice of a location was now to be the great question of my future success. I had determined on giving my attention to the raising of the smaller fruits for the great markets of New York and Philadelphia. I must therefore be somewhere on or near the railroad between those cities, and as near as possible to a station. The soil of Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, was too heavy for some of the lighter fruits. New Jersey, with its admirable sandy loam light, warm, and of surprisingly easy tillage, was proverbially adapted for the growth of all market produce, whether fruit or vegetable, and was at the same time a week or two earlier. Land was far cheaper, there was no State debt, taxes were merely nominal, and an acre that could be bought for thirty dollars could be made four times as productive as an acre of the best wheat land in Pennsylvania. Such results are regularly realized by hundreds of Jerseymen from year to year.

It was also of easy access from the city for manure-boats. Every town within the range of my wants was well supplied with churches, schools, and stores, together with an intelligent and moral population. I should be surrounded by desirable neighbors, while an hour’s ride by steamboat or railroad would place me, many times daily, among all my ancient friends in the city. We should by no means become hermits. I knew the country so well from my numerous visits among the fruit-growers, when in search of information, as to anticipate but little difficulty in finding the proper location.

By the mere accident of a slight revival in business in the early part of 1855, a party came along who was thus induced to purchase my stock and machinery. Luckily, he was able to pay down the whole amount in cash. I received what I considered at the time an excellent price; but when I came to settle up my accounts and pay what I owed, I found, to my extreme disappointment, that but a little over two thousand dollars remained.

This sum was the net gain of many years of most laborious toil. Was it possible for farming to be a worse business than this? I had made ten times as much, but my losses had been terrible. This, with my personal credit, was all the surplus I had saved. I remember now, that when thus discovering myself to be worth so little, I half regretted having given up my business for what then appeared to me so inadequate a sum. When selling, I was jubilant and thankful—when settled up, I was full of regrets. I ought to have had more. So difficult is it for the human mind to be satisfied with that which is really best.

But I little knew what the future was to bring forth, and how soon my want of thankfulness was to be changed into the profoundest conviction that I had providentially escaped from total ruin, and come out comparatively rich. I had made myself snug upon my little farm when the tornado of 1857 toppled my former establishment into utter ruin. My successor was made a bankrupt, and his business was destroyed, leaving him overwhelmed with debt. He had lost all, while I had saved all. Had I not sold when I did, and secured what the sale yielded me, I too should have been among the wrecks of that terrific visitation.

But I heard its warring in the quiet of my little farm-house, where it brought me neither anxiety nor loss. My position was like that of one sitting peacefully by his wintry fireside, gazing on the thick storm without, and listening to the patter of the snow-flakes as the tempest drove them angrily against the window-pane, while all within was calm and genial. Instead of regrets for what I had failed to grasp, my heart overflowed with thankfulness for the comparative abundance that remained to me. My peace of mind was perfect. The unspeakable satisfaction was felt of being out of business, out of debt, out of danger—not rich, but possessed of enough. The thoughtful reader may well believe that subsequent disturbances, rebellion, war, and even a more wide-spread bankruptcy—from all which my humble position made me secure—have only served to intensify my gratitude to that Divine Providence which so mercifully shaped my ways.

CHAPTER IV.

BUYING A FARM—A LONG SEARCH—ANXIETY TO SELL—FORCED TO QUIT.

AS already stated, I had in round numbers a clear two thousand dollars, with which to buy and stock a farm, and keep my family while my first crops were growing. As I was entirely free from debt, so I determined to avoid it in the future. Debt had been the bitter portion of my life, not from choice, but of necessity. My wife took strong ground in support of this resolution—what we had she wanted us to keep. I had too long been aided by her admirable counsel to reject it now. She had a singular longing for seeing me my own landlord. Her resolution was a powerful strengthener of my own convictions.

Thus resolved, we set out in the early part of March to seek a home. I was particular to take my wife with me—I wanted her to aid in choosing it. She was to occupy it as well as myself. She knew exactly what we wanted as regarded the dwelling-house,—the land department she left entirely to my judgment. I was determined that she should be made comfortable from the start, not only because she deserved to be made so, but to make sure that no cause for future discontent should arise. Indeed, she was really the best judge in this matter. She knew what the six children needed; she was the model of a housekeeper; there were certain little conveniences indispensable to domestic comfort to be secured, of which she knew more than I did, while her judgment on most things was so correct, that I felt confident if she were fully satisfied, the whole enterprise would be a successful one.

I loved her with the fervor of early married life—she had consented to my plans—she was willing to share whatever inconveniences might belong to our new position—was able to lighten them by her unflagging cheerfulness and thrift—and I was unwilling to take a single step in opposition either to her wishes or her judgment. Indeed, I had long since made up my mind, from observation of the good or bad luck of other men, that he who happens to be blessed with a wife possessing good sense and good judgment, succeeds or fails in life according as he is accustomed to consult her in his business enterprises. There is a world of caution, shrewdness, and latent wisdom in such women, which their husbands too frequently disregard to their ruin.

I am thus particular as to all my experiences; for this is really a domestic story, intended for the multitudes who have suffered half a lifetime from trials similar to mine, and who yet feel ungratified longings for some avenue of escape. My object being to point out that through which I emerged from such a life to one of certainty and comfort, the detail ought to be valuable, even if it fail to be interesting. It is possible that I may