WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. IOI 



tobacco. These are important facts. It is sin- 

 gular, however, that those who hold up the pigs 

 as models to us never hold us up as models to 

 the pigs. 



I wish I knew as much about natural history 

 and the habits of animals as Calvin does. He 

 is the closest observer I ever saw ; and there are 

 few species of animals on the place that he has 

 not analyzed. I think that he has, to use a 

 euphemism very applicable to him, got outside 

 of every one of them, except the toad. To the 

 toad he is entirely indifferent ; but I presume 

 he knows that the toad is the most useful ani- 

 mal in the garden. I think the Agricultural 

 Society ought to offer a prize for the finest toad. 

 When Polly comes to sit in the shade near my 

 strawberry-beds, to shell peas, Calvin is always 

 lying near in apparent obliviousness ; but not 

 the slightest unusual sound can be made in the 

 bushes, that he is not alert, and prepared to in- 



