188 MY FARM. 



Notwithstanding these drawbacks, however, I 

 continue to put out from year to year, a few young 

 trees; not making regular plantations, but dotting 

 them about, in shrubberies, arid in unoccupied gar- 

 den comers, grouping them in the lee of old walls 

 in the poultry yard, upon the north side of 

 buildings, in every variety of position and of soil. 

 In this way I contrive except the January tempera- 

 ture shows ten below zero to secure a fair table 

 supply. Even amid the shrubbery of the lawn, where 

 I counted their bloom and foliage a sufficient return, 

 there have been gathered scores of delicious peaches. 



I know that it is disorderly, and shocking to all 

 the prejudices of the learned, to plant fruit trees in 

 this hap-hazard way. But I love these offences 

 against system (particularly when system is barren 

 of triumphs). I love to test Nature's own ruling, 

 and give her margin for wide demonstration. 



The Poultry. 



I KNOW not whether to begin my discourse of 

 poultry with a terrific onslaught upon all feath- 

 ered creation, or to speak the praises of the matronly 

 fowls, which supply delicate spring chickens to the 

 table, and profusion of eggs. When, on some ill- 

 fated day, a pestilent, pains-taking hen, with her 



