BY WAY OF DEDICATION. 



DEAR POLLY, When a few of 



these papers had appeared in &quot;The 

 Courant,&quot; I was encouraged to continue 

 them by hearing that they had at least one 

 reader who read them with the serious mind 

 from which alone profit is to be expected. 

 It was a maiden lady, who, I am sure, was no 

 more to blame for her singleness than for her 

 age ; and she looked to these honest sketches 

 of experience for that aid which the profes 

 sional agricultural papers could not give in 

 the management of the little bit of garden 

 which she called her own. She may have 

 been my only disciple ; and I confess that the 

 thought of her yielding a simple faith to 

 what a gainsaying world may have regarded 

 with levity has contributed much to give an 



