ADVICE FOR LACKLAND 



grafting instruments, and brass syringes of 

 different capacities, and gauze netting for 

 some of your more delicate fruits, and porce- 

 lain saucers to float your big gooseberries in, 

 and forcing beds, and guano tanks, and a 

 small propagating house, and a padlock on 

 your garden, and a Scotchman to keep the key 

 at seventy dollars a month, and a fag to work 

 the compost-heaps at forty-five more." 



"The devil I will !" he says. 



"Don't be profane," I should say, "or if 

 you needs must, you '11 have better occasion 

 for it when you get fairly into the traces." 



And then — more seriously — "My dear fel- 

 low, the list, as I have said, is a capital one; 

 but it supposes most careful culture, extreme 

 attention, and a love for all the niceties of the 

 art — which you have not. You want to take 

 things easy; you don't want to torment your- 

 self with the idea that your children may be 

 plucking unaware your specimen berries; you 

 don't want to lock them out of the garden. 

 As sure as you undertake such a venture 

 you '11 be at odds with your Scotchman; 

 you '11 lose the names of your own trees; 

 you '11 forget the hyacinths; your *half- 

 hardys' will all be scotched by the second 

 winter; your dwarf 'Vicars' that need such 



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