12 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTCJRIST [Jn.Y 1, 1900. 
well, and often laid bad eggs ; b ut she re 
fused to admit of any such suggestion. Ano- 
ther neighbour openly vowed that rather 
than sell at such a figure, she would have all 
the eggs from their ]>oultry 7/ard eaten in 
the family circle, and as they have about 
500 able-bodied hens on the ))reinises, they 
appear to have undertalieu a pretty heavy 
eontract. 
NO. VL 
{By Cosmopolite.) 
' The worst kept part of a farm is generally 
the garden, whicli only "receives attention 
when no other work of a remunerative 
nature has to be attended to. Pleasure is 
all that can be deri\'ed from a garden, and 
profit is conspicuous by its absenee, and tlius 
the farmer— the poor but honest agricul- 
turist — can ill-afford the time and expense 
of keeping his garden in order. Some cranks 
— like the late Mr. Gladstone— rave about 
the possible profit from 
FRUIT-GROWING 
and jam-making, but this idea has, long since, 
been exploded, and my own pr.icticai ex- 
perience may serve to explain the reason 
why. One year I jmt on pickers to clean 
up my fruit trees and bushes, and sent the 
result of their labour to the town, where I 
got the highest price agoing for it, the sum 
total of which, however, amounted only to 
a few shillings, less than it had taken to 
pay the wages of the pickers, to say nothing 
about the cost of manuring, pruning and 
general upkeep of the garden. Since that 
date my policy is to use as much of the fruit 
as I possibly can, in my own establishment, 
the balance being given to any of the neigli- 
laouring working-men's wives who care to 
come and take the trouble to pick it. When 
I came hei-e, I found the black-currant bushes, 
in appearance, much like the coifee trees in 
the back fields of some of the old totums, of 
my own planting days. I promptly went in 
for a heavy pruning, and have used the 
knife freely, every year since, with the 
result that J see no black currants at all able 
to compare witii my own in size and quality. 
I may here mention that I do ray own 
gardening, and, as the ground extends to 
two acres besides lawn tennis green, &c., 
to be kept in order, those of my readers who 
know anything about gardening will under- 
stand that 1 have a good deal of work to 
do in my spare time, to say nothing of the fact 
that I feel the stooping and digging more ex- 
hausting than I did, before the microbe of 
corpulency laid its grim claws upon me. 
GARDENIKG, 
nowadays, is a stiffer job than it 
■was in the garden, of Eden before 
weeds had sported to any great extent, 
and when dockens and carlie-doddies 
were unknown. Beside that, my illustrious 
ancestor Adam never got into trouble with 
his wife, for spoiling his clothes, or making 
the knees of his trousers baggy through 
kneeling in the flower beds, as I find it 
necessary sometimes to do. In my planting 
days we were all great on hand weeding, 
and I, naturally, adopted the same policy in 
■my own garden, but, although I kept my 
ground remarkably clean. I found my goose- 
berry, raspberry and currant bushes be- 
cojning, year by year, less ):)roductive. At 
once 1 jumped to the conclusion that it was 
from v/ant of air at the ro{)ls, so I pnx^eeded 
to dig up th<j ground as deep as I could with 
a gra.pe, tlie result l)eing like magic : the 
bushes took a new lease" of life ; the crop 
doubled itself and the actual labour of weeding 
M'as reduced to about one half. 1 remember once 
applymg cattle maiunc to a coffee field, in 
Rangala, and lia\ ing the whole surface dug 
over v. ith grapes, and from that field, I got, 
bv far and .iway, the best crop of the year. 
At tiiat time [ attributed thi.s to the manure, 
altht)ugh 1 wondered why tlie other fields, 
that had had the same sort of manure ap- 
plied to the l oots of the bushes, had not res- 
ponded so well : but Jiow I cannot help tihink- 
ing that the digging, and the letting of the 
air into the gi ouud, had more efiect than the 
nianure itself; jierliajis some planter will try 
digging, on a portion of his estate, and report 
results. To me this season of the year, in the 
garden, is tiie most enjoyable, when the 
place fairly blazes v\ ith lilies, auriculas, prim- 
roses, \\i\V\ fiowers and others of like sorts, 
for these gf)od old-fashioned flowers are the 
ones I most .admire. Some people there are 
who can't get on without their l)egonias, or- 
chids and ageratums ; but these flowers are so 
associated, in my mmd, with weeding con- 
tracts and ghastly outlays of rupees to keep 
j^hem down, that I cannot g(j into ecstasies 
Qver their beauties. 
OUR VILLAGE 
was once again en fete, when, the other 
evening, the Episcopal Church social 
g;athering took place, in the Church Hall 
situatedat the east end of what the sanguine 
inhabitants denominate the High Street, a de- 
lightful break in the boundless monotony of 
farm life, and at whicli many members of 
other denominations put in an appearance, 
becaiise it has become an under.stood thing 
that it is always the most enjoyable entertain- 
ment of the year in our village of sweet 
auburn We -I speak for myself and the other 
soges of the p;irish,— hold this opinion at any 
rate. After the company had listened to songs 
and music galore, had drunk blashes of tea 
and eaten variety biscuits to their heart's con- 
tent, the seats were cleared awa v, and, to the 
inspiring strains of a string band of excellent 
calibre, we tripped the light fantastic toe till 
" the sma' oors ayont the twal " began to 
ring. Patti, Albani and other people have a 
good record as singers, and it would be hard 
to compete against them, but our village 
nightingales gave a wonderfully good account 
of themselves. One girl struck me all of a 
heap, and 1 fain would have danced with her; 
but she was so sought after by the young 
bloods that I felt convinced that an old 
buster like myself would have no chance, 
so I sat and gazed upon her from afar. The 
Johnnies, admiriigly, christened her "The 
Rose of St. Fergus," and the name fitted her 
like a glove whilst she appeared to enjoy 
herself to the mast head. Perii.ips she may- 
come again, to our next social g ithering, but 
alas ! 1 won't be any younger than I am now, 
.^nd so I will have no njore chance of getting 
