60 THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 



neighborhood now. My own new notion is, that we have 

 a very imperfect idea of the productiveness of the soil, 

 when worked and manured with brains. I measured up 

 403 bushels of carrots from that quarter of an acre, and 

 I expect to beat it next year. 



Yours to command, 

 TIMOTHY BUNKER, Esq. 

 Hookertown, Dec. 15, 1857. 



. 21. TIM BUNKER ON LOSING THE PRE 

 MIUM AT THE FAIR. 



(WHEREIN ESQUIRE B. GIVES SOME BROAD HINTS ABOUT 



THE WAY PREMIUMS ARE NOT UNFREQUENTLY AWARDED.) 



MR. EDITOR : I told you in my last about raising a car 

 rot crop with a new kind of manure. I did not tell you 

 how I lost the premium on the same crop. It is an old 

 saying, that &quot; merit wins,&quot; but I think that must have been 

 said in times when men were less tricky than they are now. 

 I had always thought that the only thing necessary to get 

 a premium was to raise the best crop ; but I discovered 

 at our last fair that there was a mighty difference be 

 tween raising a premium crop and getting the premium 

 for it. 



You see, our County Fair was held at Hookertown, and 

 the competition in the root crop was pretty sharp. The 

 people of that town were up in force, and I guess, if there 

 was one load of vegetables, there was twenty, heaped up 

 with big cabbage heads and squashes, long turnips and 

 beets, parsneps and carrots. The Rev. Mr. Slocum was 

 up, and both his deacons, Fessenden and Foster, and 

 Esquire Jenkins ; and all brought along lots of garden 



