PRELIMINARY. 15 



belongs to the producers. It is a pleasure 

 to eat of the fruit of one's toil, if it be 

 nothing more than a head of lettuce or an 

 ear of corn.^ One cultivates a lawn, even, 

 with great satisfaction ; for there is nothing 

 more beautiful than grass and turf in our 

 .latitude. The tropics may have their de- 

 lights ; but they have not turf : and the 

 world without turf is a dreary desert. The 

 original Garden of Eden could not have had 

 such turf as one sees in England. The Teu- 

 tonic races all love turf : they emigrate in 

 the line of its growth) 



To dig in the mellow soil to dig moder- 

 ately, for all pleasure should be taken spar- 

 ingly is a great thing. One gets strength 

 out of the ground as often as one really 

 touches it with a hoe. Antasus (this is a 

 classical article) was no doubt an agricultu- 

 rist ; and such a prize-fighter as Hercules 

 could n't do anything with him till he got 

 him to lay down his spade and quit the soil. 

 It is not simply beets and potatoes and corn 

 and string-beans that one raises in his well- 



