62 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



subduing Nature is pretty much nonsense. 

 I do not intend to surrender in the midst of 

 the summer campaign, yet I cannot but 

 think how much more peaceful my relations 

 would now be with the primal forces, if I 

 had let Nature make the garden according 

 to her own notion. (This is written with 

 the thermometer at ninety degrees, and the 

 weeds starting up with a freshness and vigor, 

 as if they had just thought of it for the first 

 time, and had not been cut down and 

 dragged out every other day since the snow 

 went off.) 



We have got down the forests, and exter- 

 minated savage beasts, but Nature is no more 

 subdued than before : she only changes her 

 tactics, uses smaller guns, so to speak. 

 She ree'nf orces herself with a variety of bugs, 

 worms, and vermin, and weeds, unknown to 

 the savage state, in order to make war upon 

 the things of our planting ; and calls in the 

 fowls of the air, just as we think the battle 

 is won, to snatch^away the booty. When 

 one gets almost weary of the struggle, she 



