THE TIM BUXKER PAPERS. 197 



story a great deal better than I can, and some of my 

 neighbors have got the lesson. Deacon Smith learned it 

 before I did. Mr. Spooner got hold of it early, and he 

 always drives a fat horse, that goes round the parish 

 preaching carrots, wherever he calls, just as plainly as Mr. 

 Spooner preaches election in the pulpit. Now I have 

 nothing agin Mr. Spooner in the world, and I don t mean 

 any reflection on him when I say that the old horse has 

 more &quot;unction&quot; in his preaching than any thing we have 

 in the Hookertown meeting-house on Sundays. There 

 hasn t been a rib in sight since he has owned him, and 

 when he drives up to the door on Sunday morning the 

 horse comes up with a prancing gait, and a coltish air, 

 that says &quot; carrots,&quot; as plain as if Mr. Spooner had a bag 

 of them under his carriage seat. I don t talk such things 

 Sundays, but you know a man can t help thinking. 



And there is Seth Twiggs, whose brains one might 

 think were all smoked out, has got ideas straight as a 

 ramrod on roots, and raises heaps of them every year, 

 though he has but a few acres of land. Even Jake Frink 



S 



is waked up by the preaching of Mr. Spooner s horse, 

 though he never hears the man except at funerals. He 

 goes in for a crop of sugar beets this season, for the first 

 time. Tucker and Jones are not yet converted, but I am 

 expecting even they will be brought in before long. 



One of the advantages of the root crop is, that it may 

 be put in late. Ruta-bagas and carrots may be sown with 

 out any detriment any time in the month of June, white 

 turnips a month later, and the first week of June will do 

 very well for sugar beets and mangel wurzels. This last 

 is the most productive of all the roots, and but little infe 

 rior to the sugar beet in quality. The &quot; commentaries &quot; 

 on roots are multiplying here. 



Yours to command, 



TIMOTHY BUNKER, ESQ. 



Hookertown, May 15, 1862. 



