82 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



nately I can cut down any sorts I do not like 

 with the hoe, and, probably, commit no more 

 sin in so doing than the Christians did in 

 hewing down the Jews in the Middle Ages. 



This matter of vegetable rank has not been 

 at all studied as it should be. Why do we 

 respect some vegetables, and despise others, 

 when all of them come to an equal honor or 

 ignominy on the table ? The bean is a grace- 

 ful, confiding, engaging vine ; but you never can 

 put beans into poetry, nor into the highest sort 

 of prose. There is no dignity in the bean. 

 Corn, which, in my garden, grows alongside 

 the bean, and, so far as I can see, with no 

 affectation of superiority, is, however, the child 

 of song. It waves in all literature. But mix 

 it with beans, and its high tone is gone. Suc- 

 cotash is vulgar. It is the bean in it. The 

 bean is a vulgar vegetable, without culture, or 

 any flavor of high society among vegetables. 



