GARDEN EXERCISE. 61 



cheerful and constant, nothing can be more effica- 

 cious than to betake yourself to the study and 

 labour of your garden. In summer or in winter, 

 you will always find there something to do, and 

 something that will give pleasure when it is done. 

 Your required exercise never wants an object ; one, 

 too, that sufficiently draws off attention from more 

 serious things, and has that peculiar interest which 

 arises from a work that is progressive. Whilst 

 the mind is refreshed by a continual variety, the 

 exercise to which the body is called has not only 

 the advantage of being in the open air, but of accom- 

 modating itself, by various degrees of activity, to 

 every change of temperature. In the training of 

 trees, the mind is agreeably occupied, whilst the 

 free air and moderate exertion are admirably calcu- 

 lated for relieving, in the early part of the week, 

 the languor and debility incident to the labours of 

 the pulpit. When the air is colder, and the frame 

 more energetic, the saw and the pruning knife, the 

 one toilsome and the other easy, are excellent com- 

 panions ; and the spade, in one half hour, will 

 bring on a summer glow in the coldest days of 

 winter. Here, then, you have a kind of exercise, 

 suited to all circumstances, ever at hand, and the 

 motive to which is ever new, and strengthened by 

 the love of progress, and the grateful survey of the 

 work you have accomplished. A mere walk, com- 

 pared with this, is like the amusement which chil- 

 dren take in writing their names on the sand of the 

 sea-shore ; you derive advantage from the motion as 



