92 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



carelessly : " I am raising my own this year." 

 Whereas I have been wont to remark, " Your 

 vegetables look a little wilted this weather," I 

 now say, " What a fine lot of vegetables you Ve 

 got ! " When a man is not going to buy, he can 

 afford to be generous. To raise his own vege- 

 tables makes a person feel, somehow, more lib- 

 eral. I think the butcher is touched by the in- 

 fluence, and cuts off a better roast for me. The 

 butcher is my friend when he sees that I am not 

 wholly dependent on him. 



It is at home, however, that the effect is most 

 marked, though sometimes in a way that I had 

 not expected. I have never read of any Roman 

 supper that seemed to me equal to a dinner of 

 my own vegetables ; when everything on the 

 table is the product of my own labor, except 

 the clams, which I have not been able to raise 

 yet, and the chickens, which have withdrawn 

 from the garden just when they were most at- 



