hundred to one hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes to the acre?" And
he will say:

"You don't really mean to say so?"

I have in my private note-book much more such tabulated information which
I picked up and hoarded for his entertainment, just as whenever a letter
comes to me from abroad, I tear off the stamp and save it for a little
girl I love.

But, as I said, our friend in the buggy was by no means limited to
potatoes for his conversation. He was learned in the geography of the
valley and told us how once the Cohocton River, now merely a decorative
stream among willows, was once a serviceable waterway, how it was once
busy with mills, and how men used to raft down it as far as Elmira.

But "the springs were drying up." I liked the mysterious sound of that,
and still more his mysterious story of an undercurrent from the Great
Lakes that runs beneath the valley. I seemed to hear the sound of its
strange subterranean flow as he talked. Such is the fun of knowing so
little about the world. The simplest fact out of a child's geography thus
comes to one new and marvellous.

Well, we had to say good-bye at last to our friend at a cross-road, and
we left him learnedly discussing the current prices of apples with a
business acquaintance who had just driven up--Kings, Rambos, Baldwins,
Greenings, and Spigs. And, by the way, in packing apples into barrels,
you must always pack them--stems down. Be careful to remember that.