20 THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 



groves of the tropics, and that the man ought to be prose 

 cuted who will put moss bunkers in any field within a 

 mile of the road. Others think the fish are good for noth 

 ing after they are put upon the land. There is nothing 

 like the good old stuif right out of the barn-yard. But 

 the majority are bound to try the article, as they agreed 

 last winter to take, some fifty thousand, some sixty, and 

 some a hundred thousand. They live too far from the 

 shore to apply them fresh to the growing crops, and they 

 are almost without exception putting them into heaps and 

 covering them with peat and muck. As this latter article 

 is abundant, they use five or six cords of it to one of the 

 fish. Tim Bunker very early consulted Deacon Smith and 

 the back numbers of the Agriculturist, and after thinking 

 the whole matter over a few days, he came to the conclu 

 sion that he would go in for fifty thousand of the fish and 

 run the risk of it. The very first load of the article he 

 brought through the street he was hailed by Mr. Jotham 

 Sparrowgrass, the uncle of Jeremiah of bird-killing memo 

 ry. Jotham was wise in the ways of his fathers and 

 knew all about the fish, for he had lived over on Long 

 Island when he was a boy. 



&quot; Well, Squire Bunker, I suppose you think you are going 

 to do a nice thing with them ere. fish, but let me tell you, 

 you don t know everything if you do take the papers. 

 Fish pizens land. I ve seen it tried time and again, and I 

 never knew it to fail.&quot; 



&quot; How do you know that, Jotham ? &quot; 



&quot; Why, you see, sir, that paper is filling your head full 

 of foolish notions. When I was a boy, my father and all 

 his neighbors used to use fish ; John Woodhull, Tom Tut- 

 tle, Ben Miller, and a lot more. They got mighty great 

 crops for a few years, and then the land got to be so poor 

 that fish didn t produce no more eifect upon it than so 

 much sand. They came to the conclusion fish pizened the 

 eile, and I never have thought much of fish since.&quot; 



