ELEVEN] COME AND SEE MY CABBAGES 
color, very sweet, and melting in quality, while the 
meat is so thick that there is hardly room for the 
seeds. With me it has been only moderately pro- 
ductive, and rather late. A shrewd boy taught 
me to have my melon patch in the middle of a 
corn field. Here he had the attractive fruits lying 
all over the ground and undisturbed. It is pos- 
sible that, in any other location, a moonlight 
night might note their departure. I do not quite 
understand why it has become an excusable, if 
not justifiable, act, to steal two things, melons 
and grapes. 
I have deferred noting my squashes, although I 
hold a good squash to be nearly as fine a thing as 
a melon or a dish of succotash. I brought you 
out into this garden of mine to make your mouth 
water, and I think I shall succeed in doing it. But 
before I tell you how to raise good squashes, I must 
give you the key that unlocks the whole question, 
and will keep your place increasing in fertility, 
rather than running down to barrenness. Just as 
soon as you buy your property, I want you to 
begin one or more compost piles. If it is an 
old farm, you will find no end of decaying matter 
and manure lying around here and there — old 
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