II.] THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 37 



in the open air many plants, which are wanted to 

 start with the warm sun, and which plants the win- 

 ter will suffer to exist in the open air in England 

 The American Spring bears no resemblance to thai 

 of England, which comes on by degree* from the 

 end of February to the beginning of June; while 

 the American Spring cannot be said to be of a fort- 

 night's duration. There is, in fact, no Spring : there 

 is a Winter, a Summer and an. Autumn, but no 

 Spring; and none would ever have been thought 

 of, if the word had not come from Europe along 

 with many others equally inapplicable. 



64. This sudden transition from a winter, which 

 not only puts a total stop to, but effaces all traces, 

 of, vegetation, to a summer, which, in an instant, 

 creates swarms of insects, or warms them into life, 

 sets the sap in rapid motion, and, in six days, turns 

 a brown rye-field into a sheet of the gayest ver- 

 dure ; this sudden transition presents the gardener, 

 or the farmer, with ground well chastened by the 

 frost, smoking with fermentation, and with a sua 

 ready to push forward every plant ; but, alas ! he 

 has no plants ! I know, that there are persons,. 

 who do preserve lettuce, cabbage, and other plants, 

 during the winter, and that there are persons, wha 

 rear them on Hot-beds in the Spring; but, what I 

 aim at, is, to render the work easy to farmers in 

 particular ; not only as the means of supplying 

 their tables, but the stalls of their cattle, and the 

 yards qf their sheep and pigs. In the summer (a 

 cruelly dry one) of 1819, who, within many mile* 

 of my house in Long Island, had a loavcd cabbage, 

 except myself? During June, July and August, I 

 allowed fifteen a, day for my own family : I gave 

 ten a day to one neighbour ; to others I gave about 

 five hundred, perhaps, first and last ; and, the plants 

 4 



