54 MY FARM. 



and the eye dilates ; and when I have done, the sting 

 is forgotten. 



I have written thus at length, at the suggestion 

 of my thatch of a bee house, because I shall have 

 nothing to say of my bees again, as co-partners with 

 me in the flowers, and in the farm. I have to charge 

 to their account a snug sum for purchase money, and 

 for their straw housing a good many hours of bad 

 humor, and the recollection of those little screams 

 to which I have already alluded. Thus far, I can 

 only credit them with one or two moderately sized 

 jars of honey, and a pleasant concerted buzzing with 

 which they welcome the first warm weather of 

 the Spring. Even as I write, I observe that a few of 

 my winged workers are alight upon the mossy 

 stones that lie half covered in the basin of the foun 

 tain, and are sedulously exploring the water. 



Clearing Up. 



OF course one of the first aims, in taking posses 

 sion of such a homestead as I have partially de 

 scribed, was to make a clearance of debris, of unne 

 cessary palings, of luxuriant corner crops of nettles 

 and burdocks, of mouldering masses of decayed vege 

 table matter, of old conchologic deposits, and ferru 

 ginous wreck ; all this clearance being not so much 



