The apples were carefully picked,
for they do not bear handling well, and the perfect ones were placed in
half-bushel boxes and sent to my city grocer. Not one defective apple
was packed, for I was determined that the Four Oaks stencil should be as
favorably known for fruit as for other products.
The grocer allowed me fifty cents a box. "The market is glutted with
apples, but not your kind," said he. "Can you send more?" I could not
send more, for my young trees had done their best in producing
ninety-six boxes of perfect fruit. Boxes and transportation came to ten
cents for each box, and I received $38 for my first shipment of fruit.
I cannot remember any small sum of money that ever pleased me
more,--except the $28 which I earned by seven months of labor in my
fourteenth year; for it was "first fruits" of the last of our
interlacing industries.
Thirty-eight dollars divided among my trees would give one cent to each;
but four years later these orchards gave net returns of ninety cents for
each tree, and in four years from now they will bring more than twice
that amount.
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