WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. 25 



give general moral satisfaction. It seemed 

 to me that nobody could object to potatoes 

 (a most useful vegetable) ; and I began to 

 plant them freely. But there was a chorus 

 of protest against them. "You don't want 

 to take up your ground with potatoes," the 

 neighbors said : " you can buy potatoes " 

 (the very thing I wanted to avoid doing is 

 buying things). " What you want is the 

 perishable things that you cannot get fresh 

 in the market." " But what kind of per- 

 ishable things?" A horticulturist of emi- 

 nence wanted me to sow lines of straw- 

 berries and raspberries right over where I 

 had put my potatoes in drills. I had about 

 five hundred strawberry-plants in another 

 part of my garden ; but this fruit-fanatic 

 wanted me to turn my whole patch into 

 vines and runners. I suppose I could raise 

 strawberries enough for all my neighbors ; 

 and perhaps I ought to do it. I had a little 

 space prepared for melons, musk-melons, 

 which I showed to an experienced friend. 

 "You are not going to waste your ground 



