TARRYTOWN LETTERS. 



615 



In that case Mrs. Tarryer would stand over a few 

 more blacksmiths and handle-makers, in the hopes 

 of getting a "Weeding Thimble" made nice and 

 strong for Commissioner Mitchell and all his clerks 

 to try in their gardens. 



You should see her deploy her forces equipped 

 with these millennial instruments ! She has a 

 piece of land fallow that she designs for a garden 

 next year. She declares there is no literature 

 describing the best process of fallowing land. 

 Writers are weak in details. The husbandman 

 who does it well has no time to write about it. If 

 you plow and harrow deeply and often, weed seeds 

 don't sprout from the loose soil and be killed. 

 Garden earth must be compact as well as moist 

 during hot weather to promote germination. We 

 might plow and harrow often enough never to sprout 

 and kill a weed. 



So when showers have laid the dust upon the 

 smooth surface of that prospective garden-ground, 

 lying as fair as a tennis-court, Mrs. Tarryer ranges 

 her boys and girls facing it, with seven or eight feet 

 of space between them, and explains for the benefit 

 of new hands that the "Tarryer" (for short) must 

 be constantly swinging before them to be ready to 

 hit every weed at sight. So the orders are " Right ! 

 — Swing ! — March !" — and away they go ! It is a 

 pretty sight — just the thing for a weedy school 

 where both sexes are trained together in the garden. 



The weeds on several acres lie blasted in the track 

 of the young people, after an hour's sun, as if the 

 fire had swept over them. This is done quicker 

 and much better than horses could do it. Mrs. 

 Tarryer often calls a " Halt !" — to explain the nature 

 of the different weeds — how you needn't strike por- 

 tulacca as low as you do rumex, and the like.* 



Fall winds are blowing now, to be sure, but we 

 must have the idea of weeding constantly in mind, 

 or no manufacturer will bring out " Mrs. Tarryer's 

 Weeding Thimble" right in time for next season. 

 A light hay-fork is a terror for small weeds, how- 

 ever, in hands that mean to kill them. 



Mrs. Tarryer says the above is all right, but I 

 wish to add a word about M'Tavish, Mrs. Schnip- 

 ticket's factotum. He is growing too stout to stoop 

 much, and he did Mrs. Tarryer the questionable 

 honor of carrying one of her "Thimbles" all 

 through carrot and turnip time, greatly to her sat- 

 isfaction. He says it is the very thing for singling 

 and weeding root crops. He can't see a turnip 

 within a yard of him, and Mrs. Tarryer's long 

 handle reaches to the line of his horizon, so to 

 speak, but any man who is a trifle undersized will 

 sympathize with my disgust at the insinuating way 

 these big, broad Scotchmen have with women. 



A. B. Tarryer. 



*Pusley and sorrel. — Ed. 



