CROPS AND PROFITS 



yard material are no more suited to the deli- 

 cate organization of garden-plants, than a 

 roasted side of bacon is suited to a child's diet. 

 They may struggle with it indeed. Possibly 

 they may reduce it to subjection; but their 

 growth will be rank and flavorless, whatever 

 size they may gain. 



It is a common mistake to suppose that gar- 

 den products are good in proportion to their 

 size. The horticultural societies have done 

 great harm in bolstering the admiration for 

 mere grossness. Smoothness, roundness, per- 

 fect development of all the parts, and delicacy 

 of flavor, are the true tests. I remember once 

 offering for exhibition a little tray of garden 

 products, in which every specimen of fruit and 

 vegetable — though by no means all it should 

 have been — was perfect in outline, well devel- 

 oped, free from every sting of insect or ex- 

 crescence, and of that delicate and tender fibre 

 which belongs only to swift and unchecked 

 growth; yet my poor tray was overslaughed 

 entirely by an adjoining show of monster vege- 

 tables, with warty excrescences, and of rank 

 and wholly abnormal development. The com- 

 mittee would have been properly punished if 

 they had been compelled to eat them. 



In the same way, and with equal fatuity, 



177 



