GROUND FOR A GARDEN. 14! 



tivated about eight acres for three years, barely 

 making a living ; his soil was an excellent loam, 

 but two-thirds of it was so ' spongy ' that he 

 could never get it ploughed till all the neighbors 

 had their crops planted. Driving past one day 

 I hailed him, asking him why he was so late in 

 getting in his crop, when he explained that if 

 he had begun sooner his horses would have 

 * bogged' so, he might never have got them 

 out again. I suggested draining, but he re- 

 plied, that would not pay on a leased place ; 

 he had started on a leased place which 

 had only seven years more to run, and that he 

 would only be improving it for his landlord, who 

 would allow him nothing for such improvement. 

 After some further conversation, I asked him to 

 jump into my wagon, and in ten minutes we 

 alighted at a market-garden that had six years 

 before been just such a swamp hole as his own, 

 but now (the middle of May) was luxuriant 



