84 Details and Dollars 



I had begun the spring with a garden ledger, 

 keeping an accurate account of every penny 

 spent, and hoping to put on the other side of 

 the page a tremendous list of fine vegetables. 

 The accounts are before me now, and I pre- 

 sume that every one who had been through 

 the same experience has preserved some such 

 record. 



The tools rakes, forks, spades, hoes, water- 

 ing-pots, lawn-mower, etc. cost me $18. 

 Wages to my stalwart friend during the whole 

 season were $26.00; seeds were $2.80; manure, 

 $6.00; wire fencing, made necessary in order to 

 keep out a flock of my neighbors' hens labor- 

 ing under the idea that in my garden were to 

 be found the best insects of the whole neigh- 

 borhood, and acting upon this belief, $5.00 

 total, $57.80. Of this amount the tools and 

 the wire fencing say $20 may be looked 

 upon as well invested for the future, so that 

 my actual outlay, for which I should receive 

 an equivalent in the shape of vegetables, was 

 about $37. The list of vegetables begins with 

 entries day by day ; then the garden produce is 

 lumped at the end of the week; and finally in 



