BY WAY OF DEDICATION. 



MY DEAR POLLY, When a few of these 

 papers had appeared in " The Courant," I 

 was encouraged to continue them by hearing 

 that they had at least one reader who read 

 them with the serious mind from which alone 

 profit is to be expected. It was a maiden 

 lady, who, I am sure, was no more to blame 

 for her singleness than for her age ; and she 

 looked to these honest sketches of experience 

 for that aid which the professional agricul- 

 tural papers could not give in the manage- 

 ment of the little bit of garden which she 

 called her own. She may have been my 

 only disciple ; and I confess that the thought 

 of her yielding a simple faith to what a gain- 

 saying world may have regarded with levity 

 has contributed much to give an increased 

 practical turn to my reports of what I know 



