BY WAY OF DEDICATION. 



Y DEAR POLLY, When a few 

 of these papers had appeared in 

 " The Courant," I was encouraged 

 to continue them by hearing that they had 

 at least one reader who read them with the 

 serious mind from which alone profit is to be 

 expected. It was a maiden lady, who, I am 

 sure, was no more to blame for her singleness 

 than for her age ; and she looked to these hon- 

 est sketches of experience for that aid which 

 the professional agricultural papers could not 

 give in the management of the little bit of gar* 

 den which she called her own. She may have 

 been my only disciple ; and I confess that the 



