DETAILS AND DOLLARS MY GARDEN, fj 



to do the work for me, which he did in a week, 

 charging me nine dollars for the job. As he 

 professed to be also an expert in planting vege- 

 tables, I bought a supply of seeds in the city 

 and entrusted them to him, assuring myself 

 that once in the ground the rest of the work 

 would fall to me ; if I could not keep a garden 

 patch fifty feet square clear of weeds, I had 

 better abandon the business at once, and all 

 hopes of making a living out of scientific gar- 

 dening. The beginning was an unfortunate 

 one. The weather happened to be first very 

 wet, and then so dry and hot that my vege- 

 tables were unable to break their way through 

 the baked earth. When my peas and beans 

 still gave no signs after being in the ground two 

 weeks, I discovered that the whole work would 

 have to be done over again. A Presidential 

 campaign was beginning which kept me in town 

 often late at night, so that the chief labor of 

 the garden fell to my faithful Irishman, who 

 got far more satisfaction out of it than I did. 

 The vegetables finally did come up above the 

 surface, and many an evening I finished a hard 

 day's work by pumping and carrying hundreds 

 of gallons of water to pour upon potato plants, 



