SOILS. 8 1 



incapable of producing anything but *' docks," — 

 " Richard, your forefathers have helped to reclaim 

 the greater part of Sherwood Forest, while their 

 neighbors were draining the Lincoln fens ; and I 

 should almost have hoped, taking into account the 

 discoveries of modern science, that you might, in 

 a favorable season, have educed a few potatoes 

 even from the depraved material before us." But 

 he didn't seem to "see it. 



Wherefore I would ask to narrate, in antith- 

 esis, and to take away, as it were, a nauseous 

 flavor — like the fig which followed the castor-oil 

 of our youth — another small incident. The 

 "navvy" is not commonly a man of floral proclivi- 

 ties, but I met with a grand exception a few years 

 ago in the leader of a gang then working upon 

 one of our midland lines. When the work was 

 done, and the band dispersed, he applied for and 

 obtained a gate-house on the rail, and to that tene- 

 ment was attached the meanest apology for a 

 garden which I ever saw in my life. Knowing 

 his love of flowers, I condoled with him at the 

 beginning of his tenancy ; but he only responded 

 with a significant grunt, and a look at the garden, 

 as though it were a football and he was going to 

 kick it over the railway. It seemed to me a 

 gravel-bed, and nothing more. Twelve months 



6 



