146 FIVE ACRES TOO MUCH. 



face upon the matter, and, in an indifferent sort of 

 way, told Patrick to trench the necessary ground. 

 To my great surprise and relief, he understood me, 

 and I found it was not making a ditch round the 

 plot, as I had suspected, but digging it well over and 

 putting in manure. The roots of the asparagus were 

 queer-looking things, without any green tops, remind 

 ing one of the frogs legs seen in market strung on 

 a stick, only that they have rather more legs than a 

 frog. They were planted under my own supervision, 

 and there we shall leave them until next spring, in 

 the firm hope we shall see more of them. 



The fruit-trees had to be set out in the fall, besides 

 a forest of shade-trees ; but, as this was done in Oc 

 tober, after the cold weather had driven me to town, 

 some painful mistakes arose in placing them; the 

 fruit-trees generally found themselves where the 

 shade -trees were to have been, and the smallest 

 dwarfs usurped the locations of the tallest monarchs 

 of the forest. This produced an irregular effect. 

 There bid fair to be great thinness of foliage where 

 we hoped for the densest shade, and the large trees 

 were generally planted in such parts of the garden 

 as required most sun ; this, however, was not a serious 

 matter, as they could be arranged in the ensuing fall, 

 and it is not clear, after all, whether a little shade is 



