246 MY FARM, 



Knowing too Much. 



I SOMETIMES see in the papers, advertisements 

 of gardeners, who can be seen at Thorburn s, 

 in John street, on stated mornings, when they hold 

 their levee, who insist upon entire control. A 

 modest man, going among them, and entreating the 

 services of one at forty dollars a month, and boord, 

 feels very much as if he were hiring himself to him 

 in some subordinate capacity, with the privilege of 

 occasionally sniffing the perfume through the open 

 doors of the green-house. There may be those 

 country-lovers who enjoy this state of dependence 

 upon the superior authority of a gardener ; but I do 

 not care to be counted among them. I have too large 



an acquaintance among the sufferers. M , an 



amiable gentleman, and a friend of mine, and an ex 

 treme lover of flowers, dared no more to pick a rose 

 without permission of c Wallace, than he dares to 

 be caught reading an unpopular journal. Wallace 

 is instructed ; but in the assertion of his authority, 

 impudent. And when at last my friend summoned 

 resolution to dismiss him, there came a dray to the 

 back-entrance, which was presently loaded down 

 with the private cuttings and perquisites of the ac 

 complished gardener. 



