Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/27

 would leave the dining-room. He is very plain, and knows it, in which respect he is different from Andrew Carnegie. He is known as "Mr. Lister," and is going to South Africa to hunt lions. At first, the passengers picked at him a good deal, but during the long voyage to Sydney he became one of the most popular men on board, largely because he is quiet and well-behaved.

One of the passengers is an Australian who lived for a time in South Africa, and made money in mining. Disposing of his holdings to advantage, he went to Oregon, and engaged in apple-growing. It is very interesting to hear him tell of his experiences. He knew nothing about apple-growing when he went to Oregon, but "picked up" a practical knowledge of the business through experience. One of his "experiences" was losing $40,000 in buying a bad orchard. This taught him caution, and later he made money. His apple-pickers are compelled to wear gloves, and to twist rather than pull fruit from the trees. His specialty is buying orchards of shiftless owners, and reviving them. I heard him say last night that there were two sure ways of making money in the United States: the best is apple-growing, and the second is sheep-raising. It interested me greatly to hear that a man might learn a new business and make a success of it in three or four years, as this man did in the apple business Captain Trask has great contempt for the modern sailor; he says any old woman of fifty could do the work of a sailor these days, but in the old days of sailing ships, seamen were compelled to work very hard, and their trade was a difficult one. The