68 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



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 extermi 

 nated savage beasts ; but Nature is no more sub 

 dued than before : she only changes her tactics, 

 uses smaller guns, so to speak. She re-en 

 forces herself with a variety of bugs, worms, and 

 vermin, and weeds, unknown to the savage state, 

 in order to make war upon the things of our 

 planting ; and calls in the fowls of the air, just 

 as we think the battle is won, to snatch away 

 the booty. When one gets almost weary of the 

 struggle, she is as fresh as at the beginning, 

 just, in fact, ready for the fray. I, for my part, 

 begin to appreciate the value of frost and snow ; 

 for they give the husbandman a little peace, and 

 enable him, for a season, to contemplate his in 

 cessant foe subdued. I do not wonder that the 



