

THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 17 



to call for a pushing away at the trunks, till their roots took only 

 weak hold in the ground. It was, if we recollect, in the spring of 

 1829, when we were scarcely nine years of age, that the trees thus 

 treated, refused to put out bud or blossom, nor so much as gave 

 evidence of life. From that hour, losing faith in Poor Richard's 

 Almanac, we followed thereafter our own inclination and methods. 

 How many were the plants taken up and put back into their own 

 or new places we cannot now say. To examine their roots, and find 

 out their ways of germination, became a passion. Nothing so dis- 

 turbed us as the wrong end up in which the beans came out of the 

 ground. Why again should the potatoes grow beneath the soil, 

 and the balls upon the tops of the vines, was a puzzle to us. Peas 

 the fourth of July, and cucumbers the middle of that month, with 

 which to give keener relish for our trout, was an ever yearning am- 

 bition. 



We think it was at about the age of twelve, when we came across 

 a newspaper mention of an experiment which we decided to forth vnitij. 

 make. This was one with which nearly everybody has become 

 familiar ; that of a tight barrel set on end, and filled with round 

 stones so far up as the open bung, then shingled with flat stones, 

 and these covered with straw and a coating of coarse manure, fin- 

 ishing up by filling the barrel with rich earth, and planting on this 

 a hill of cucumbers. The handiest barrel was accordingly seized 

 upon, that used by our foster mother for pounding clothes. We 

 began operations in earnest, but conflict ensued, since it was im- 

 possible to convince our maternal guide that her pounding barrel 

 was the spot in which to grow pickles. Threats of castigation did 

 not deter us from persistence, and promising our mother another 

 and better barrel within a few days, we went defiantly ahead with 

 our "gardening." The maternal word was kept to the letter, but 



