110 FIVE ACRES TOO MUCH. 



not be dressed in that style of art upon winch I pride 

 myself, and handed exultingly round to friends after 

 the woodcock and claret, as so much superior to the 

 stale, insipid stuff purchased in the markets. Egg 

 plants, richest of vegetables, were not to be pressed 

 upon the surfeited guest as coming from my garden. 

 Beans had proved a delusion, and tomato -vines a 

 snare. All my study of horticultural works was to 

 be thrown away. 



It is true, we had raised an egg-plant, but it was 

 small so small that we thought of sending it to the 

 agricultural fair as a rare production : it measured 

 one inch and a half in circumference. We also 

 raised one tomato, but a careless wretch trod on it, 

 and crushed it and our hopes together. There was 

 a fine lot of wild radish, which my friends pro 

 nounced to be weeds, although I had hopes for a 

 time that a few of them would become tame. I was 

 disappointed, however : they covered the new beds, as 

 fast as these were cleared and dug, with a luxuriant 

 clothing of bright green, and their leaves were pretty 

 and graceful, but their roots never would come to 

 any thing worth mentioning. It is deeply to be re 

 gretted that Nature has so constituted plants and 

 weeds respectively, that the former won t grow and 

 the latter will. I did not eat a Daniel O Kourke pea 

 after all. 



