WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. 69 



tropical people, where Nature never goes to 

 sleep, give it up, and sit in lazy acquiescence. 

 Here I have been working all the season to 

 make a piece of lawn. It had to be graded and 

 sowed and rolled ; and I have been shaving it 

 like a barber. When it was soft, everything had 

 a tendency to go on to it, cows, and especially 

 wandering hackmen. Hackmen (who are a pro 

 duct of civilization) know a lawn when they see 

 it. They rather have a fancy for it, and always 

 try to drive so as to cut the sharp borders of it, 

 and leave the marks of their wheels in deep ruts 

 of cut-up, ruined turf. The other morning, I 

 had just been running the mower over the lawn, 

 and stood regarding its smoothness, when I no 

 ticed one, two, three puffs of fresh earth in it ; 

 and, hastening thither, I found that the mole had 

 arrived to complete the work of the hackmen. 

 In a half-hour he had rooted up the ground like 

 a pig. I found his run-ways. I waited for him 



