THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 59 



least ten cords, and very strong. I had it all worked into 

 that quarter of an acre with the trenching spades, full 

 three feet deep. I then raked it all over with a steel- 

 toothed garden rake, the teeth six inches long, making a 

 seed bed about as soft as a bed of down. I sowed the 

 carrots in drills, on the first day of June. The drills were 

 fourteen inches apart, and I thinned them out to eight 

 inches in the drill. 



When I was digging them, the week before Thanks 

 giving, Deacon Smith, Seth Twiggs, and Uncle Jotham 

 Sparrowgrass, came along. The heaps were laying on 

 the ground, about as thick as haycocks, and nearly half 

 as big. 



&quot; Quite a crop, Esq. Bunker,&quot; says the Deacon. 



&quot; Did you subsile this year ?&quot; inquired Seth, his counte 

 nance fallen and woe-begone, as he eyed the yellow boys 

 lying around, many of them plump thirty inches long. 



&quot; Pray, what did you manure with ?&quot; inquired Jotham, 

 as his eyes opened with astonishment. 



&quot; With brains,&quot; said I. 



&quot; Brains !&quot; exclaimed Jotham. &quot; I never heerd of that 

 manure afore. Where upon earth could you get enough 

 for a load ?&quot; 



I could see that the Deacon enjoyed Jotham s innocence, 

 and there was a sly twinkle in Seth s eye, which showed 

 that the idea was crawling through his wool. 



&quot; If you do not believe me, gentlemen, if you will walk 

 down to the lower part of the garden, I ll convince you 

 of the fact.&quot; 



&quot; There,&quot; said I, pointing to the tile, which were then 

 discharging water into the ditch, &quot; I put the brains of 

 ten thousand bony fish on top of that piece of land, and 

 down below, there, you see some of my brains running 

 out.&quot; 



Uncle Jotham Sparrowgrass got a new idea upon brain 

 manure then, and it is very well disseminated in this 



