486 EDITOR'S 



simply scraping. That clay is just as hard as it 

 was before he touched it with his scraper. 



So here are three types of hoe-users — the chop- 

 per, the weed-hunter and the scraper. They all 

 work faithfully and do not earn fifty cents a day. 

 What is hoeing ? That is easier asked than ans- 

 wered. Let a man get a deep conception that hoe- 

 ing means pulverization, with such incidental advant- 

 ages as weed-killing, leveling, smoothing and the 

 like, and let him come into the feeling that it is not 

 mere drudgery, and he soon learns how to hoe. 

 Nor do we think this latter attribute an unimportant 

 one. Just in proportion as a man looks upon his 

 work as drudgery, does it deteriorate in value. It 

 lacks spirit and intelligence. What a pleasure it is 

 to loosen up the soil ! How the plants love it ! 

 How the air penetrates the loose mold ! How all 

 nature smiles upon you as a helpmeet and gives 

 you a double reward ! And the fields and the winds 

 and the loves of plants and birds are yours ! 



-X- * 



LUGUBRIUS, our neighbor across the way, to 

 whom we read this last burst of emotion, 

 shrugged his shoulders and said: "That's 

 all very well for you fine chaps, but by the time you 

 peg away all day I guess you will think otherwise. I 

 can't see any fun in hoeing." To this astute remark 

 we could only reply by saying that we get tired of 

 pic-nics and fire-crackers, and that the man who can 

 see some fun in hoeing has the advantage. " That 

 will do very well to talk about," he retorted, "but 

 if you had to keep up your row all day, I guess you 

 would be tired at night." Now this is just the re- 

 mark which we wanted him to make. Have we 

 not been obliged to keep up our row in many hot 

 and dusty days when every clod burned our bare 

 feet ? And do we not remember how the boss used 

 to call out, "Come, Bub, come along; keep up 

 your row ?" And have we not gone home at noon 

 and night too tired to eat, too tired even to throw 

 stones at the squirrels in ttie old log fence ? But 

 why should a man become a pessimist simply be- 

 cause he has to labor and gets tired ? It does one 

 good to get tired. The man who never gets tired 

 never accomplishes enough to pay for living. It is 

 not the tiresomeness but the thoughtlessness which 

 snatches away the happiness. How many of us 

 work in a tread mill all day, or pull the sweep of a 

 brick mill, not thinking that we can do or think any- 

 thing else ! Put life into the hoe, put determination 

 into it, put thoughtfulness into it — then tell us next 

 year if hoeing has not become easier to you ! You 

 will see what it is to hoe ' ' in the spirit, " and to live. 



OUTLOOK. 



BUT there are some people who try to put too 

 much thought into their hoeing, or they put 

 in the wrong kind of thought. These peo- 

 catch old thoughts with their fingers and crowd 

 them into their brains, and when they pull them out 

 again they call them original ! Biblius, our next 

 door neighbor, is one of these men. He cannot 

 cut off a daisy without calling out C/irysattthemum 

 Leucatithejman / During all the day he is full of 

 metaphors and Latin names and scientific di- 

 gressions. Now, Philip, our gardener, takes a 

 great delight in making sly remarks about Biblius' 

 hoeing. When we had been away a few days and 

 wrote to Philip we got a characteristic reply, and 

 we knew that he had just been looking over the 

 fence into Biblius' geranium bed. 



"Writing and talking are not in my line," he 

 wrote ; " and perhaps it is just as well, for I might 

 then feel that I could write and some one else 

 should work. I would then call the potato Solafitcm 

 tuberosum and the carnation Dianthiis Caryophylhis ; 

 but I prefer a well grown potato of good flavor 

 when cooked, and a large good-shaped carnation. I 

 would then belong to a class who seem to have a 

 monopoly of all the ideas about gardening. Nor do 

 I belong to the artistic or romantic class of gardeners. 

 I will not promise you great things in the grand fu- 

 ture. I would rather prove as I go along." 



Now, all this pleased us greatly. It somehow 

 seems to us that Philip thinks more than Biblius 

 does after all. Philip knows big Latin names, 

 but he does not hoe with them. 



* 



THE Society of American Florists meets late in 

 this month in .Boston. If there is any in- 

 dustry nearer heaven than another, it must be 

 the florists'. A man who is always with flowers 

 and who knows them intimately ought to be the 

 sunniest and best of men. So we shall count upon 

 being in Boston. We have met before with the flor- 

 ists, butwe have been disappointed. We found our- 

 selves in sympathetic company, after a fashion, 

 for we were ' ' hale fellows well met. " Members went 

 to the convention hall, sometimes — the faithful few 

 went always — but the majority oftener went else- 

 where. We found the convention an unwieldy mass, 

 prone to clap-trap. The " excursions " have some- 

 times been disgraceful. Who recalls with pleasure 

 a certain junketing up theHudson? 



Our heart is in this societ}', for we love all that 

 it legitimately represents and we admire many of its 

 men ; but let us purify it, give it definiteness, 

 straightforwardness and dignity. Its work is too 

 noble to be slighted. 



