WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. 47 



chickens, pretty well grown, and that you 

 like spring chickens broiled. He will take 

 them away at once. 



The neighbors' small children are also 

 out of place in your garden, in strawberry 

 and currant time. I hope I appreciate the 

 value of children. We should soon come 

 to nothing without them, though the Sha- 

 kers have the best gardens in the world. 

 Without them the common school would 

 languish. But the problem is, what to do 

 with them in a garden. For they are not 

 good to eat, and there is a law against mak- 

 ing away with them. The law is not very 

 well enforced, it is true ; for people do thin 

 them out with constant dosing, paregoric, 

 and soothing-syrups, and scanty clothing. 

 But I, for one, feel that it would not be 

 right, aside from the law, to take the life 

 even of the smallest child, for the sake of a 

 little fruit, more or less, in the garden. I 

 may be wrong ; but these are my sentiments, 

 and I am not ashamed of them. When 

 we come, as Bryant says in his Iliad, to 



