NOVEMBER 



IRISH GARDENING. 



169 



nip. My peas and radishes and cauliflower were buried 

 in their appropriate beds, and lovingly left to Nature's 

 kindly care. A little later my corn and beans and 

 cucumbers and melons and squashes were planted, and 

 then my tomatoes and eg-g--plants were set out. 



I fancied that only my family and myself and a few 

 kindly neighbours, who, I was conceited enough to 

 suppose, rather envied my agricultural skill, knew what 

 I was doing. But I was mistaken. Ten thousand 

 little beady eyes watched my manoeuvers, ten thousand 

 wriggling creatures congratulated themselves on their 

 coming victor}-. 



I heard the crows in the neighhiHuing pine trees 



The cutworm brigade of the enemy were more 

 patient than the crows, as they needed to be. They 

 bided their time, and just when the cauliflower and 

 Brussels sprouts and cucumbers timidly pushed their 

 green heads above tiie brown soil, they bore down 

 upon them, gorged their loathsome bodies with the 

 tenderest juices of the young plants, and left me 

 defeated and my garden strewn with the wilted and 

 dying remnants of the crops that only yesterday gave 

 so fair a promise. 



All this in a single night. Each plant had its own 

 worm, just one single worm, but there were enough 

 worms to go around. It was as if the worms met 



X'lBLKNt.M Ol-LLLS SlKRlLE (TlIE S.NOU HALL TREli) 

 le Grounds of P. La Touclie, Esq., U.L., Harristowii, Braiinockblown, Cu. Kildaic. 



cawing and caucusing together, and, in manlike folly, 

 which pooh-poohs at anything it does not understand. 

 I said — "Those foolish crows have just one raucous 

 note. Why can't they say something sensible and 

 melodious ? " 



In reality they were saying to each other: "He's 

 planted his corn ; he's planted his corn ! I know where 

 I'll get my breakfast to-morrow morn. " 



Sure enongh they did, and as they get up an hour 

 or two before I thought of rising, they were in my 

 corn-field long before I was, and the first round of the 

 battle was theirs. To be sure, I could replant my corn, 

 but that was a»confession of defeat, as though a general 

 allowed his troops to be mowed down and then had to 

 fill up his regiments with raw recruits, which in turn 

 were just as likely (o be slaughtered. 



together in a council ol' war, and the general-in-chief 

 marshalled his troops with consummate skill, assigning 

 to each soldier his post — a cauliflower, cabbage, or 

 cucumber, as the case might be. They all obeyed 

 orders implicitly, and I was routed, horse, foot, and 

 dragoons. 



I could have borne the disappointment, and attributed 

 it all to the notoriously uncertain hazards of war. if the 

 enemy had been less wanton, if they had eaten the 

 rations they captured ; but no, they simply cut the 

 plants in two, near the ground, and left the beans to 

 wither in the sun and the roots to dry up in the ground. 

 They were like a regiment of looters who could eat but 

 little and carry away nothing, and who, for the mere 

 fiendish pleasure of destruction, burned and ravaged 

 everything that came in their way. 



