HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 247 



When a gardener knows so much as to refuse any 

 suggestions, and to disallow any right on the part of 

 the proprietor to stamp his place with his own indi 

 viduality of taste, he knows altogether too much. 

 This is the Scotch phase of knowing too much ; but 

 there is an American one that is even worse, and 

 which puts a raw edge upon country socialities. 



I find no man so disagreeable to meet with, as 

 one who knows everything. Of course we expect it 

 in newspaper editors, and allow for it. But, to meet 

 a man engaged in innocent occupations over your 

 fence, who is armed cap-a-pie against all new ideas, 

 who knew it afore, or has heerd so, or doubts 

 it, or replies to your most truthful sally t ain t so, 

 nuther, is aggravating in the extreme. 



There is many a small farmer, scattered up and 

 down in New England, whose chief difficulty is 

 that he knows too much. I do not think a single 

 charge against him could cover more ground, or 

 cover it better. It is hard to make intelligible to a 

 third party, his apparent inaccessibility to new ideas, 

 his satisfied quietude, his invincible inertium, his 

 stolid, and yet shrewd capacity to resist novelties, 

 his self-assurance, his scrutinizing contempt for out- 

 sidedness of whatever sort his supreme and ineradi 

 cable faith in his own peculiar doctrine, whether of 

 politics, religion, ethnology, ham-curing, manuring 

 or farming generally. 



