THE MANSE GARDEN. 45 



that swells its details to the consumption of far more 

 time than would be necessary, without its aid, for 

 the discovery of all that it contains ; and, besides, a 

 book on the subject before us is sure to contain a 

 great many things of which we have no manner of use. 



If I want to know what sort of peas I should pur- 

 chase for seed, I meet a list so long that I am per- 

 plexed, like a shopping damsel amidst an ocean of 

 calicoes ; and how should I get out of the labyrinth, 

 if indeed I should venture in, to choose an apple out 

 of three hundred varieties? My life is not long 

 enough to try so many apples or to eat so many 

 peas. Besides, although I have no hot-houses and 

 no conservatory? I cannot learn how to sow carrots 

 without encountering a dissertation on the bleeding 

 of vines, or the temperature fit for exotics. I am, 

 moreover, three hundred feet above the level of the 

 sea, and farther from the tropic than I could wish ; 

 and when I proceed with directions for the month 

 suited to Covent Garden, if not to the climate of 

 Italy, I find, for the time being, nothing but ice 

 and snow, and might as well dig a Roman causeway, 

 or sow the top of Mount Blanc. 



And then some of the finer fancy pieces of work, 

 such as budding or grafting, which in their nature 

 are very captivating, and as simple as splicing a rope, 

 cannot appear in a book of science, without a por- 

 tentous minutise about saddles and scions, that deter 

 from all attempts, and make it appear that nothing 

 short of a regular apprenticeship can qualify for the 

 mystery. Kind reader, I mean to deliver thee from 

 the killing toil of ponderosity, and from the awe of 

 mystery from the perplexity of needless varieties, 



