MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 69 



&quot; uses tobacco in any form ; &quot; for I have 

 seen him several times, and he was not 

 smoking. Indeed, I offered him a Con 

 necticut six ; but he wittily said that he 

 did not like a weed in a garden, a re 

 mark which I took to have a personal 

 political bearing, and changed the sub 

 ject. 



The president was a good deal sur 

 prised at the method and fine appear 

 ance of my garden, and to learn that I 

 had the sole care of it. He asked me if 

 I pursued an original course, or whether 

 I got my ideas from writers on the sub 

 ject. I told him that I had had no 

 time to read any thing on the subject 

 since I began to hoe, except &quot; Lothair,&quot; 

 from which I got my ideas of landscape- 

 gardening ; and that I had worked the 

 garden entirely according to my own 

 notions, except that I had borne in mind 

 his injunction, &quot; to fight it out on this line 



