My Garden 85 



September the garden appears to have yielded 

 nothing but tomatoes and beets, the potatoes 

 having failed to come to anything, owing to a 

 variety of causes, which my assistant explained 

 in different ways on different occasions. One 

 day he said that the potato bugs had done it, 

 and another day he was convinced that if I had 

 put in manure enough earlier in the season I 

 might have had splendid potatoes. In other 

 words, if I had spent ten dollars for manure, 

 and had given up my days to fighting the bugs, 

 I might have had five dollars' worth of potatoes 

 in return. 



The first entry of vegetables is in a bold 

 hand, and is to the effect that on the loth of 

 June we had some radishes of an estimated 

 market value of five cents. Then come lettuce 

 and peas, and later on spinach, beans, radishes, 

 carrots, and finally tomatoes in profusion. For 

 some purpose which I could never fathom, half 

 of my garden plot was planted with cucumbers 

 of a particularly hard and leathery type. They 

 throve in the most wonderful fashion, and there 

 were bushels of them, of no earthly use to any 

 one ; we could not eat them or give them away. 



