14 WHAT THE SISTER ARTS 



Farming or Housewifery, it is absurd to say that this stupid pre- 

 judice against Book-farming has been already sufficiently dealt 

 with, since it is this day so potent and mischievous. Bear with 

 me, then, while I attempt to let in some daylight upon it through 

 the relation of a few homely facts : 



I was visiting some old friends in Vermont last summer, when 

 I observed in the garden of one of them the most thrifty and 

 luxuriant grape-vine that I had ever seen growing in so cold a cli- 

 mate. Now it is one advantage possessed by the class of ig- 

 norant cultivators to which I belong over that sort who not merely 

 know nothing but glory in it, that we are not at all reluctant to 

 confess our ignorance when we see a chance of thus mitigating it. 

 I, therefore, at once asked the lady whose vine this was, to tell 

 me by what means she had insured it such vigor and productive- 

 ness ; and she replied that she had made it her rule, ever since 

 the vine was set there, to throw a pailfull of soap-suds at its root 

 at the close of every washing-day. Again : in the same garden I 

 remarked a scar or ring around each plum-tree, just above the 

 ground, and, on inquiry, ascertained that these trees had been 

 girdled last spring by some malicious scoundrel, who had halted 

 one dark night, on his way from the gutter to the State prison, to 

 perpetrate this dastardly outrage. The owner discovered the 

 mischief early next morning, and, having a pot of copal var- 

 nish in the house, speedily applied it with a brush . to the wound 

 on each tree, covering each with a coat of varnish ; and by this 

 means every tree was saved. When I saw them in midsummer, 

 they were as green and thrifty as any trees within miles. Now 

 I do not stand here to maintain that soap-suds will always insure 

 an abundance of fine grapes, nor that a coating of varnish, sea- 

 sonably applied, will always save girdled trees ; for I do not 

 know such to be the fact. I trust further experience and inquiry 

 will cast light on both points that soap-suds will be withheld 

 from the door-yard and given to the grape-vines ; and that every 

 tree that any prowling rascal may girdle will be promptly coated 

 with varnish until we shall determine under what circumstances, 

 and with what limitations, potash or soda is beneficial to grapes 

 and varnish an antidote for girdling. The point I make is this, 



