THE MANSE GARDEN. 11? 



the large branches, bringing the tree to the figure of 

 a cup ; and then with a pruningknife take off so 

 many of the young shoots as to leave those that 

 remain a handbreadth apart. 



Towards the end of May the caterpillar makes 

 its appearance, and in a very short period completes 

 the work of destruction; but if it be observed in 

 time, a boy, hired at sixpence a-day, will in two 

 or three days, by creeping under the bushes and 

 gathering the caterpillars from the leaves, save the 

 whole of your crop. If you desire him to put a notch 

 in a small stick with his knife for every hundred he 

 kills you give him an incredible stimulus to perse- 

 verance. His sole aim is to add another sum to the 

 amount of his past achievement ; and whilst this en- 

 gages his mind by the supply of novelty, and the 

 surprise of accumulating success, it frees him from 

 the contemplation of a field too large for adventure, 

 and of leaves more numerous than his eye can 

 'survey. 



The principle in this case is not unlike that which 

 prescribes small and separate tasks for a child, or 

 portions of study, adequate to an hour, for one of 

 riper years, without telling the one that the whole 

 book jnust be read, or showing the other all the circle 

 of science which his pathway surrounds. It is thus, 

 when the acquisition is not oppressive, but such as to 

 confer the pleasure which arises from progress, that 

 the next step, without reference to the completed 

 circle, is taken with desire and delight, in like man- 

 ner as the worldly, though they aim not at gaining 

 the whole world, do not weary, all life long, in laying 

 field to field. It is to be presumed, however, that 



