^^ Mtnter Garden 



all the secrets of vegetable-growing. With 

 a short-handled hoe he goes about, digging 

 industriously around the roots of things, 

 his back arched like a furious cat's, his nose 

 almost touching the ground. It is he who 

 brings in the great heads of cauliflower, 

 the young red radishes, the silver-tipped 

 onion-shoots, the spinach, the crisp lettuce, 

 the bur-artichokes, and the strawberries. 

 Everything, indeed, which can be coaxed 

 or forced to grow into edible bulb, leaf, 

 stalk, flower, or fruit he wrestles with. 

 All sorts of phosphates, cotton-seed 

 meal, bone-dust, leaf-mold, and swamp- 

 muck are lavished to fertilize the sand 

 withal. He feeds his plants as if they 

 were his children, talking to them in a queer 

 monotone while pruning, weeding, and 

 watering them. It is from his area of 

 cultivation that comes all this pungency 

 which now and again loads the air. A 

 whiff of garlic even strays into the flower- 

 plats, and makes an inartistic foil for the 

 perfume of rose and the aroma of acacia. 

 Our neighbors, scattered hither and yon 

 in the vast pine wood, come and go along 

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