18 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



this was something of daily discipline, and so we did not seriously 

 object to it, in view of the harvest in prospect. 



Our experiment was made with care, since we had found out thus 

 early, that what was worth doing at all, was worth well doing. Our 

 one hill of cucumbers did wonders, and yet came far short of a 

 barrel of pickles. We estimated them at a half bushel, but now, 

 having gotten over the ardor of youth, we are bound to admit that 

 they would have filled only a peck measure, and possibly have come 

 short of that by at least " one pickle." But the pounding barrel 

 having been ruined, and the " rod in pickle" having been applied, 

 and the crdp falling far short of our expectations, we resolved not 

 to give it up so, but repeated our experiment the ensuing year, 

 well convinced that we could demonstrate the fact that a pounding 

 barrel was a good place in which to grow pickles ; and the second 

 time we succeeded in an eminent degree, since the one hill, in the 

 barrel, produced nearly or quite a half bushel, and doing the pick- 

 ing ourselves, and the barrel being in close proximity to a fine 

 patch in the garden, we convinced our foster mother that her boy 

 was a prodigy in growing cucumbers ; nor told a lie any more than 

 would George Washington probably have done under similar cir- 

 cumstances, but left our mother to tell the story of her boy having 

 grown a full half barrel of pickles from one hill, planted in her 

 pounding barrel. 



In the season of 1840, finding ourself in Michigan, we made care- 

 ful note of the good effects upon grasses and grains in proximity 

 to the primeval forests, more especially in fields lying below the 

 level of the wilderness in which the maple, beech, basswood and 

 other like timbers prevailed ; nor did the corresponding dearth in 

 fields on and about the prairies and oak-openings, escape observa- 

 tion. Again, in tracing what we presumed were tracks of hidden 

 waters beneath the surface operating as we conjectured as inlets 



