l6 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



seeds, and watch their renewal of life, this is 

 the commonest delight of the race, the most sat- 

 isfactory thing a man can do. When Cicero 

 writes of the pleasures of old age, that of agri- 

 culture is chief among them : " Venio nunc ad 

 voluptates agricolarum, quibus ego incredibiliter 

 detector: qtice nee ulla impediuntur senectute, et 

 mild ad sapientis vitam proxime vidcntur acce- 

 dere" (I am driven to Latin because New York 

 editors have exhausted the English language in 

 the praising of spring, and especially of the 

 month of May.) 



Let us celebrate the soil. Most men toil that 

 they may own a piece of it ; they measure their 

 success in life by their ability to buy it. It is 

 alike the passion of the parvenu and the pride of 

 the aristocrat. Broad acres are a patent of no- 

 bility ; and no man but feels more of a man in 

 the world if he have a bit of ground that he can 

 call his own. However small it is on the sur- 



