THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 201 



blame Seth Twiggs for raving about his lilac bush. His 

 wife planted it and had a right to rejoice in it. It was 

 rather hard to see the growth of years destroyed in a 

 moment by an ignorant boor. 



We cultivate flowers and learn to love them for their 

 beauty, and for the pleasure they give our wives and chil 

 dren. They cost considerable time and money, and really 

 give more pleasure than many things that cost ten times 

 as much. They are associated with our leisure hours and 

 our domestic enjoyments. They seem to belong to the 

 better side of our natures. We have a moss rose under 

 our bed-room window that little Sally planted when she 

 was a school girl. It hangs full of blossoms every year 

 not worth a cent. But I declare I had rather lose a half 

 dozen of the best apple trees in my orchard than that 

 worthless shrub. 



It is very much so with our nice garden fruits. We 

 raise them because we can t buy them in the country, and 

 don t want to beg or steal them. I cultivate grapes and 

 pears, and get a good deal interested in the vines and 

 trees. I spend days in training them, and enjoy my power 

 over them. They have a value to me above the market 

 price, because they are the product of my skill. I have 

 watched that bunch of grapes from its blossom to the pur 

 ple bloom upon its ripened berries. I have watched those 

 ruddy cheeked pears quite as anxiously, and anticipated 

 the delight of setting them before my friends, when they 

 pay me a visit. When the friends are gathered for the 

 feast, it is a sore vexation and disappointment to find the 

 fruit missing. We need more efficient laws to protect us 

 against fruit and flower thieves, and above all a wider 

 diffusion of a taste for these things, which will prove the 

 best safeguard against their loss. 



Yours to command, 



TIMOTHY BUNKEK, ESQ. 



Hookertown, June 14, 1862. 



