WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. 143 



This sitting in the sun amid the evidences 

 of a ripe year is the easiest part of gardening 

 I have experienced. But what a combat 

 has gone on here ! What vegetable passions 

 have run the whole gamut of ambition, self- 

 ishness, greed of place, fruition, satiety, and 

 now rest here in the truce of exhaustion! 

 What a battle-field, if one may look upon it 

 so ! The corn has lost its ammunition, and 

 stacked arms in a slovenly, militia sort of 

 style. The ground vines are torn, trampled, 

 and withered ; and the ungathered cucum- 

 bers, worthless melons, and golden squashes 

 lie about like the spent bombs and exploded 

 shells of a battle-field. So the cannon-balls 

 lay on the sandy plain before Fort Fisher 

 after the capture. So the great grassy 

 meadow at Munich, any morning during the 

 October Fest, . is strewn with empty beer- 

 mugs. History constantly repeats itself. 

 There is a large crop of moral reflections in 

 my garden, which anybody is at liberty to 

 gather who passes this way. 



I have tried to get in anything that of- 



