BUNGLED GARDENING. 47 



except on its young wood ; but Andrew will not 

 allow a twig to remain, and hence the tree, after 

 ten years of trial, by torture, is, with others of the 

 same family, condemned and burnt, either for bar- 

 renness or contumacy. Meantime your wife and 

 children have often had watering teeth, on viewing, 

 in the Squire's garden, a rich profusion of green- 

 gages and of magnums, like the golden eggs of yore, 

 and have wondered why they have none at the 

 manse, Andrew blames the nurseryman for cheat- 

 ing in the matter of grafts, and you suspect the 

 soil. This is really too bad, to have nothing for 

 the teeth to have the best soil, a wall that did 

 not come there without expence ; not forgetting 

 your account current with the man of price ; and 

 to have no other produce than a set of bare, knotty, 

 gnarled old poles, held up to the beauteous sun with 

 shreds of old hats or pieces of shoe leather; and all 

 this, because your man of science cannot see why 

 the plum should differ from the pear. 1 would 

 exhort you not to suffer ugliness, sterility, conceit, 

 and useless expence. If you do not choose to 

 notice what, part of a tree is made for bearing fruit, 

 and tell Andrew to spare that, or put in a nail your- 

 self, lay the axe to every root, and plant ivy, which 

 will train itself, look beautiful, and cost nothing. 



As in the fruit department, so in the vegetable. 

 Dinner on the table, you have nothing but pota- 

 toes; and an apology is made, alleging the badness 

 of the garden. The truth is, your man, going to 

 all places, remembers nothing about any place; and 



