WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. 63 



is as fresh as at the beginning, just, in 

 fact, ready for the fray. I, for my part, be- 

 gin to appreciate the value of frost and 

 snow ; for they give the husbandman a little 

 peace, and enable him, for a season, to con- 

 template his incessant foe subdued. I do 

 not wonder that the tropical people, where 

 Nature never goes to sleep, give it up, and 

 sit in lazy acquiescence. 



Here I have been working all the season 

 to make a piece of lawn. It had to be 

 graded and sowed and rolled; and I have 

 been shaving it like a barber. When it was 

 soft everything had a tendency to go on to it, 

 cows, and especially wandering hackmen. 

 Hackmen (who are a product of civilization) 

 know a lawn when they see it. They rather 

 have a fancy for it, and always try to drive 

 so as to cut the sharp borders of it, and 

 leave the marks of their wheels in deep ruts 

 of cut-up, ruined turf. The other morning 

 I had just been running the mower over the 

 lawn, and stood regarding its smoothness, 

 when I noticed one, two, three puffs of fresh 



