WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. 75 



Tliis matter of vegetable rank has not 

 been at all studied as it should be. Why 

 do we respect some vegetables, and despise 

 others, when all of them come to an equal 

 honor or ignominy on the table ? The bean 

 is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine ; but 

 you never can put beans into poetry, nor 

 into the highest sort of prose. There is no 

 dignity in the bean. Corn, which in my 

 garden grows alongside the bean, and, so 

 far as I can see, with no affectation of supe- 

 riority, is, however, the child of song. It 

 waves in all literature. But mix it with 

 beans, and its high tone is gone. Succotash 

 is vulgar. It is the bean in it. The bean 

 is a vulgar vegetable, without culture, or any 

 flavor of high society among vegetables. 

 Then there is the cool cucumber, like so 

 many people, good for nothing when it is 

 ripe and the wildness has gone out of it. 

 How inferior in quality it is to the melon, 

 which grows upon a similar vine, is of a like 

 watery consistency, but is not half so valu- 

 able ! The cucumber is a sort of low come- 



