HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 247 



When a gardener knows so much as to refuse any 

 suggestions, and to disallow any right on the part of 

 the proprietor to stamp his place with his own indi- 

 viduality of taste, he knows altogether too much. 

 This is the Scotch phase of knowing too much ; but 

 there is an American one that is even worse, and 

 which puts a raw edge upon country socialities. 



I find no man so disagreeable to meet with, as 

 one who knows everything. Of course we expect it 

 in newspaper editors, and allow for it. But, to meet 

 a man engaged in innocent occupations over your 

 fence, who is armed cap-a-pie against all new ideas, 

 who ' knew it afore,' or ' has heerd so,' or doubts 

 it, or replies to your most truthful sally ' t'ain't so, 

 nuther,' is aggravating in the extreme. 



There is many a small farmer, scattered up and 

 down in New England, whose chief difficulty is 

 that he knows too much. I do not think a single 

 charge against him could cover more ground, or 

 cover it better. It is hard to make intelligible to a 

 third party, his apparent inaccessibility to new ideas, 

 his satisfied quietude, his invincible inertium, his 

 stolid, and yet shrewd capacity to resist novelties, 

 his self-assurance, his scrutinizing contempt for out- 

 sidedness of whatever sort his supreme and ineradi- 

 cable faith in his own peculiar doctrine, whether of 

 politics, religion, ethnology, ham-curing, manuring, 

 or farming generally. 



