1 8 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



a great thing. One gets strength out of the 

 ground as often as one really touches it with a 

 hoe. Antaeus (this is a classical article) was no 

 doubt an agriculturist ; and such a prize-fighter 

 as Hercules could n't do anything with him till 

 he got him to lay down his spade, and quit the 

 soil. It is not simply beets and potatoes and 

 corn and string-beans that one raises in his well- 

 hoed garden : it is the average of human life. 

 There is life in the ground ; it goes into the 

 seeds ; and it also, when it is stirred up, goes 

 into the man who stirs it. The hot sun on his 

 back as he bends to his shovel and hoe, or con- 

 templatively rakes the warm and fragrant loam, 

 is better than much medicine. The buds are 

 coming out on the bushes round about ; the 

 blossoms of the fruit-trees begin to show ; the 

 blood is running up the grape-vines in streams ; 

 you can smell the wild-flowers on the near bank , 

 and the birds are flying and glancing and singing 



