62 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



should, apply the knowledge which comes to your minds when 

 they are intent on your occupation. 



"A certain nobleman, very proud of the extent and beauty of 

 his pleasure grounds, chancing one day to call on a small squire 

 whose garden might cover half an acre, was greatly struck with 

 the brilliant colors of his neighbor's flowers. ' Ay, my lord, 

 flowers are well enough,' said the squire, ' but permit me to show 

 you my grapes.' Conducted into an old-fashioned little green- 

 house, wliich served as a vinery, my lord gazed with mortifica- 

 tion and envy on grapes twice as fine as his own. ' My friend,' 

 said my lord, ' you have a jewel of a gardener ; ' let me see him.' 

 The gardener was called — the single gardener — a simple-looking 

 young man under thirty. ' Accept my compliments on your 

 flower-beds and your grapes,' said my lord, ' and tell me, if you 

 can, why your flowers are so much brighter than mine, and 

 your grapes so much finer. You have studied horticulture pro- 

 foundly.' ' Please your lordship,' said the man, ' I have not had 

 the advantage of much education ; I been't no scholar, but as to 

 the flowers and the vines, the secret as to training them just 

 come to me, you see, by chance.' ' By chance ? Explain.' 

 ' Well, my lord, three years ago master sent me to Lunnon on 

 business of his'n, and it came on to rain, and I took shelter in 

 the mews, you see, and there were two gentlemen taking shelter 

 too ; and they were talking about charcoal, and one said it had 

 done a deal of good in many cases of sickness, and especially in 

 the first stage of the cholera ; and I took a note on my mind of 

 that, because we'd had the cholera in our village the year afore, 

 and I guessed the two gentlemen were doctors. And one of the 

 gentlemen went on to say that charcoal had a special good effect 

 upon all vegetable life, and told a story of a vine-dresser in 

 Germany, I think, who had made a very sickly, poor vineyard 

 one of the best in all those parts, simply by charcoal dressings. 

 So I naturally pricked up my ears at that, for our vines were in 

 so bad a way that master thought of doing away with them alto- 

 gether. Well, before I tried the charcoal on my plants, I went 

 to our nurseryman, who has a deal of book learning, and I 

 asked him if he'd ever heard of charcoal dressing being good 

 for vines, and he said he had read in a book that it was so, but 

 he had never tried it. He lent me the book, and I tried the 

 charcoal in the way the book told me to try it, and that's how 



