THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 33 



the claims put forth a great humbug, whatever might be 

 said of the tuber itself. 



Rev. Mr. Slocum, of Shadtown, next addressed the meet 

 ing. This gentleman s exchanges with the Hookertown 

 minister have been more frequent of late, and as he always 

 stops at Esquire Bunker s, it is mistrusted that something 

 beside the Farmers Club made him stay over to attend 

 this meeting. Perhaps Sally Bunker knows about that ; 

 your Reporter does not. He said that he had received one 

 of the pamphlets which Judge Bronson had mentioned, 

 and from what he could learn at the ministers meetings, 

 the work was pretty extensively distributed among the 

 clergy last winter. Whether the operators in tubers thought 

 that an unusual share of the green ones was to be found 

 among the clergy, he could not say. Probably that view 

 of their character had something to do with the liberal 

 share of pamphlets bestowed upon them. He was happy 

 to state, however, that very few of his brethren had been 

 caught in the trap, and those who had fooled away their 

 ten dollars were best able to bear it. Gentlemen who had 

 tried the new yam in his parish were disappointed with its 

 performance, and thought it a swindle. 



This brought up old Jotham Sparrowgrass, the distin 

 guished uncle of Jeremiah, the Broadway clerk, who made 

 such a figure shooting robins and bobolinks last summer, 

 in Tim Bunker s cow pasture, as the readers of the Agri 

 culturist will remember. Jotham had grown envious of 

 Esquire Bunker s recent improvements and notoriety, and 

 also of his neighbors, and though he was always running 

 out against book-farming and new-fangled notions, he de 

 termined that for once he would steal a march upon them, 

 and astonish the natives with potatoes a yard long. As 

 soon as he saw the notices of the Dioscorea in certain lead 

 ing political papers, he determined upon a venture, and 

 ordered a dozen through his nephew, Jeremiah Sparrow- 

 grass him of New York City. 

 2* 



