54 JfT FARM. 



and the eye dilates ; and when I have done, the sting 

 is forgotten. 



I have written thus at length, at the suggestion 

 of my thatch of a bee house, because I shall have 

 nothing to say of my bees again, as co-partners with 

 me in the flowers, and in the farm. I have to charge 

 to their account a snug sum for purchase money, and 

 for their straw housing a good many hours of bad 

 humor, and the recollection of those little screams 

 to which I have already alluded. Thus far, I can 

 only credit them with one or two moderately sized 

 jars of honey, and a pleasant concerted buzzing with 

 which they welcome the first warm weather of 

 the Spring. Even as I write, I observe that a few of 

 my winged workers are alight upon the mossy 

 stones that lie half covered in the basin of the foun- 

 tain, and are sedulously exploring the water. 



Clea/i*ing Up. 



OF course one of the first aims, in taking posses- 

 sion of such a homestead as I have partially de- 

 scribed, was to make a clearance of debris, of unne- 

 cessary palings, of luxuriant corner crops of nettles 

 and burdocks, of mouldering masses of decayed vege- 

 table matter, of old conchologic deposits, and ferru- 

 ginous wreck ; all this clearance being not so much 



