78 MT SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



ing. The currant is well enough, clear as 

 truth, and exquisite in color ; but I ask you 

 to notice how far it is from the exclusive 

 hauteur of the aristocratic strawberry, and 

 the native refinement of the quietly elegant 

 raspberry. 



I do not know that chemistry, searching 

 for protoplasm, is able to discover the ten- 

 dency of vegetables. It can only be found 

 out by outward observation. I confess that 

 I am suspicious of the bean, for instance. 

 There are signs in it of an unregulated life. 

 I put up the most attractive sort of poles for 

 my Limas. They stand high and straight, 

 like church-spires, in my theological garden, 

 lifted up ; and some of them have even 

 budded, like Aaron's rod. No church-stee- 

 ple in a New England village was ever better 

 fitted to draw to it the rising generation on 

 Sunday than those poles to lift up my beans 

 towards heaven. Some of them did run 

 up the sticks seven feet, and then straggled 

 off into the air in a wanton manner ; but 

 more than half of *them went galivanting off 



