154 TALKS AFIELD. 



sect. It is never safe to draw conclusions 

 hastily, and especially not from one or two 

 detached observations. I will relate a very 

 sober incident, of which an account was 

 published a short time since in an agricultu- 

 ral paper, and I request that my readers 

 bear it in mind as an antidote against hasty 

 conclusions. An observing fruit-grower pos- 

 sessed a plat of smooth-fruited gooseberries. 

 A favorite family cat, having unceremoni- 

 ously died, was buried underneath one of 

 the gooseberry bushes, and behold ! the next 

 year that bush bore hairy berries, and has 

 so continued to do unto the present day ! 



But beside a remedy for indifferent habits 

 and these aids to mental perception and 

 logical reasoning, one needs some purely 

 physical apparatus to enlarge his eyesight. 

 This apparatus is the microscope. I do not 

 speak of the com- 

 pound microscope, 

 which is much too 

 complex an instru- 

 ment to place in the 

 hands of a 

 novice, but 

 ^'S- '^^ rather of the 



simple lens or hand-glass. A handy pocket 



