HOT-BEDS. CHAP. 



How much more instructive, too! "Bend the twig 

 when young :" but, here, there needs no force ; nay, not 

 even persuasion. The thing is so pleasant in itself j it 

 so naturally meets the wishes ; that the taste is fixed at 

 once, and it remains, to the exclusion of cards and dice, 

 to the end of life. Indeed, gardening in general is fa- 

 vourable to the well-being of man. As the taste for it 

 decreases in any country, vicious amusements and vicious 

 habits are sure to increase. Towns are preferred to the 

 country j and the time is spent in something or other 

 that conduces to vice and misery. Gardening is a source 

 of much greater profit than is generally imagined ; but, 

 merely as an amusement, or recreation, it is a thing of 

 very great value : it is a pursuit not only compatible 

 with, but favourable to, the study of any art or science : 

 it is conducive to health, by means of the irresistible 

 temptation which it offers to early rising ; to the stirring 

 abroad upon one's legs j for a man may really ride till 

 he cannot walk, sit till he cannot stand, and lie abed till 

 he cannot get up. It tends to turn the minds of youth 

 from amusements and attachments of a frivolous or vicious 

 nature : it is a taste which is indulged at home : it tends 

 to make home pleasant, and to endear us to the spot on 

 which it is our lot to live : and, as to the expenses attend- 

 ing it, what are all these expenses, compared with those 

 of the short, the unsatisfactory, the injurious enjoyments 

 of the card-table, and the rest of those amusements or 

 pastimes which are sought for in the town ? 



