28 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



sex, of course) to have a garden to his own self* 

 ish uses. He ought not to please himself, but 

 every man to please his neighbor. I tried to 

 have a garden that would give general moral 

 satisfaction. It seemed to me that nobody could 

 object to potatoes (a most useful vegetable) ; and 

 I began to plant them freely. But there was 

 a chorus of protest against them. " You don't 

 want to take up your ground with potatoes," the 

 neighbors said : " you can buy potatoes " (the 

 very thing I wanted to avoid doing is buying 

 things). " What you want is the perishable 

 things that you cannot get fresh in the market." 

 " But what kind of perishable things ? " A 

 horticulturist of eminence wanted me to sow 

 lines of strawberries and raspberries right over 

 where I had put my potatoes in drills. I had 

 about five hundred strawberry-plants in another 

 part of my garden ; but this fruit-fanatic wanted 

 me to turn my whole patch into vines and run- 



