' HOW I EDITED AN A GRJCUL TURAL PAPER. 237 



I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this person had been 

 entertaining himself with, for I could not help feeling renjotely accessory to them. 

 But these thoughts were quickly banished, for the regular editor walked in ! [I 

 thought to myself, Now if you had gone to Egypt as I recommended you to, I 

 might have had a chance to get my hand in ; but you wouldn't do it, and here you 

 are. I sort of expected you.] 



The editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected. 



He surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and these two young farmers had 

 made, and then said, " This is a sad business — a very sad business. There is the 

 mucilage bottle broken, and six panes of glass, and a spittoon and two candlesticks. 

 But that is not the worst. The reputation of the paper is injured — and permanently, 

 I fear. True, there never was such a call for the paper before, and it never sold 

 such a iarge edition or soared to such celebrity; — but does one want to be famous 

 for lunncy, and prosper upon the infirmities of his mind 1 My friend, as I am an 

 honest man, the street out here is full of people, and others are roosting on the 

 fences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they think you are crazy. And" 

 well they might after reading your editorials. They are a disgrace to journalism. 

 Why, what put it into your head that you could edit a paper of this nature .' You 

 do not Seem to know the first rudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and 

 a harrow as being the same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and 

 you recommend the domestication of the pole-cat on account of its playfulness and, 

 its excellence as a ratter ! Your remark that clams will lie quiet if music be played 

 to them was superfluous — entirely superfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams 

 always lie quiet. Clams care nothing whatever about music. Ah, heavens and 

 earth, friend I if you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you 

 could not have graduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I never saw 

 anything like it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut as an article of 

 commerce is steadily gaining in favor, is simply calculated to destroy this journal. 

 I want you to throw up your situation and go. I want no more holiday — I could 

 not enjoy it if I had it. Certainly not with- you in my chair. I would always 

 stand in dread of what you might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose 

 all patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under the head of 

 "Landscape Gardening." I want you to go. Nothing on earth could persuade me 



