OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



Most men go to the country to make an 

 easy thing of it. If they must commence 

 study of all the later discoveries in vegetable 

 physiology, and keep a sharp eye upon all new 

 varieties of fruit — lest they fall behind the 

 age; and trench their land every third year, 

 and screen it — may be — in order to ensure 

 the most perfect comminution of the soil, they 

 find themselves entering upon the labors of a 

 new profession, instead of lightening the fa- 

 tigues of an old one. Any thorough practice 

 of Horticulture does indeed involve all this; 

 but there are plenty of outsiders, who, with- 

 out any strong ambition in that direction, 

 have yet a very determined wish to reap what 

 pleasures they can out of a country life, by 

 such moderate degree of attention and of 

 labor as shall not overtax their time, or plunge 

 them into the anxieties of a new and engross- 

 ing pursuit. 



What shall be done for them? To talk to 

 such people — and I dare say scores of them 

 may be reading these pages now — about the 

 comparative vigor of a vine grown from a 

 single eye, or a vine grown from a layer, or 

 about the shades of difference in flavor be- 

 tween a Vicomtesse berry and a Triomphe de 

 Gand— is to talk Greek to them; it is as if a 



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