AN ESSAY. 197 



privilege of talking beyond the limits of reason, I would 

 like to tell you some little stories that have some little 

 connections with the cultivation of the evil's root. 

 You will see, if you allow me to go on. It may pos- 

 sibly edify you. I have always, and I have not done 

 what does not pay or pays. But the truth is, that I 

 have for the last half century spent many days, weeks, 

 months, one, two, three, ten, twenty-five and thirty 

 years in growing plants, in rearing, besides plants 

 (some intellectual notions and a number of other things 

 that need not be described here), that have taken me 

 two, three, five, twenty, twenty- five years to raise a 

 customer to buy them. As to the other notions, they 

 have not been raised in view of making money, for I 

 was convinced beforehand that all the benefit I would 

 derive would be some moral gratification ; but, since, 

 I have made retrospective reflections, that the best pay- 

 ing of the two was the " not paying undertaking / '' 

 and DO NOT BELIEVE this a PAKADOX, but A POTENT 



TRUTH. 



And, if you please, I will exhibit some facts to cor- 

 roborate what I have said. At the time the Brooklyn's 

 Hort. Society was flourishing thanks to the zeal of 

 the President, Mr. Degraw not to the gardeners, 

 who, partially, with the breaking out of the war, 1860, 

 knocked it out of existence, about 1855 or 1856, I for- 



