52 THOREAU. 



catch it, my ferrets which I sent into its burrow, my 

 brace of terriers which unearthed it. A little myste 

 rious hoeing and manuring was all the abracadabra 1 

 presto-change that I used, and, lo ! true to the label, 

 they found for me 310 pounds of poitrine jaune 

 grosse there, where it never was known to be, nor 

 was before. These talismen had perchance sprung 

 from America at first, and returned to it with una 

 bated force. The big squash took a premium at your 

 fair that fall, and I understood that the man who 

 bought it intended to sell the seeds for ten cents a 

 piece. (Were they not cheap at that ?) But I have 

 more hounds of the same breed. I learn that one 

 which I dispatched to a distant town, true to its in 

 stincts, points to the large yellow squash there, too, 

 where no hound ever found it before, as its ancestors 

 did here and in France. 



Other seeds I have which will find other things in 

 that corner of my garden, in like fashion, almost any 

 fruit you wish, every year for ages, until the crop 

 more than fills the whole garden. You have but lit 

 tle more to do than throw up your cap for entertain 

 ment these American days. Perfect alchemists I keep 

 who can transmute substances without end, and thus 

 the corner of my garden is an inexhaustible treasure- 

 chest. Here you can dig, not gold, but the value 

 which gold merely represents ; and there is no Sign or 

 Blitz 2 about it. Yet farmers sons will stare by the 

 hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his throat, 

 though he tells them it is all deception. Surely, men 

 love darkness rather than light. 



1 A charm once used by the superstitious. 



2 A Swiss juggler who was a favorite performer in New Eng. 

 land between 1850 and 1860. His trained canaries were one of 

 the wonders of the day. 



