THE MANSE GARDEN. 257 



notions, and your boy so furnished is as perfect a 

 workman as the first in a palace garden. The work 

 is a masterpiece, and never did hand of thrifty wife 

 print with more pleasure her store of newmade meal 

 than you will a mould of such aptitude, whether for 

 receiving the fine fibres of a flower or the fairy beads 

 of the amaranth. At such a work your boy is a trea- 

 sure; you have him at any rate, and the work, though 

 slow, is sweet to the eye when done ; but it might 

 lose some of its sweetness on settling accounts with 

 other hands at the rate of two shillings per day. 



I shall notice little more than one other sort of 

 work, to exemplify the methods of turning your boy's 

 hands to good account. I allude to one which he 

 can do perfectly which will never fail in supplying 

 fair weather employment, and by the perseverance 

 of which the manse garden will show the best crops 

 in the parish. Let no prejudice as to inadequacy of 

 strength prove a hinderance. Nothing but ignorance 

 of the spade and of muscular exertion can make the 

 name of' trenching sound harsh as work for a boy. 

 The work is in fact as easy as any other : severity 

 lies in quantity, not in kind. A man to make two 

 shillings must trench twentyfour square yards; and if 

 your boy do one fourth of that number, neither is he 

 overwrought nor do you keep him for nothing; and 

 even at this lowly rate it is surprising so little do 

 we notice the progress of time how great the amount 

 will appear after a long period ! Supposing you 

 have a trench opened, and the work proceeds, the 

 progress, though marked by small additions, is still 

 an object in dreary winter. But a snowfall has shut 

 all up, and yet the sky is delightfully serene. For 



