The Garden Grows 19 
slender hold on life, you have my position exactly. I hold on 
to an idea with a death grip, and.by attaching to it all sorts 
of incongruous compromises, it materializes in a form never 
conceived; which proves that original ideas are vital organ- 
isms, and follow their own mode of development, and you 
meekly trail on behind. TI used to think my failure with origi- 
nal ideas was due to an excess of imagination. I now believe 
it is due to gross ignorance of the laws that govern the mental 
world. This enterprise proved a shining example of the 
phoenix form such an idea takes from the ashes of one’s plans. 
For many years the rock heap had been the dumping 
ground for coarse rakings of manure and small stones from 
the flower beds, mulch from the vegetable garden, clippings 
of grass from the lawn and dead leaves. These had decayed 
and made a rich black compost. Hence, the tilling of a stone 
heap is a very different matter from tilling the average New 
Hampshire soil. In the former, the deeper you dig, and the 
more stones you get out, the more light rich earth you have; 
while in the ordinary soil the deeper you dig and the more 
rocks you get out, the bigger the hole left. I think I come 
close to the truth when I say our average land runs a bushel of 
rocks to a pint of earth; and as for the quality of the earth, the 
less said, the better it is for the reputation of New Hampshire 
farms. Let it be understood that I am generalizing from a 
- single example, which is said to be the prerogative of genius. 
When conversation flags in our household, I can always radi- 
ate a genial heat by introducing casually the topic of the na- 
tive soil. Adam rises to it like a fish to a fly, and one would 
think we were Government experts, the way we fling our sta- 
tistics. In his loyalty he declares New Hampshire raises more 
corn to the acre than any State in the Union. This is met 
with scorn; the great Western States are cited; but Adam ut- 
terly disclaims the possibility of a yield of a hundred bushels 
