58 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



This talk of subduing Nature is pretty 

 much nonsense. I -do not intend to 

 surrender in the midst of the summer 

 campaign, yet I cannot but think how 

 much more peaceful my relations would 

 now be with the primal forces, if I had 

 let Nature make the garden according 

 to her own notion. (This is written 

 with the thermometer at ninety degrees, 

 and the weeds starting up with a fresh 

 ness and vigor, as if they had just 

 thought of it for the first time, and had 

 not been cut down and dragged out 

 every other day since the snow went 



off.) 



We have got down the forests, and 

 exterminated savage beasts ; but Nature 

 is no more subdued than before : she 

 only changes her tactics, uses smaller 

 guns, so to speak. She re-enforces her 

 self with a variety of bugs, worms, and 

 vermin, and weeds, unknown to the sav- 



