130 
RURAL HOURS. 
There is, unhappily, a very serious objection to cultivating fruit 
in our village gardens ; fruit-stealing is a very common crime in 
this part of the world ; and the standard of principle on such sub- 
jects is as low as it well can be in our rui-al communities. Prop- 
erty of this kind is almost without protection among us ; there 
are laws on the subject, but these are never enforced, and of course 
people are not willing to throw away money, and time, and 
thought, to raise fruit for those who might easily raise it for them- 
selves, if they would take tlie pains to do so. There can be no 
doubt that this state of things is a serious obstacle to the cultiva- 
tion of choice fruit in our villages ; horticulture would be in a 
much higher condition here if it were not for this evil. But the 
impunity with which boys, and men, too, are allowed to commit 
thefts of this kind, is really a painful picture, for it must ine-vdta- 
bly lead to increase a spirit of dishonesty throughout the commu- 
nity. 
It is the same case with flowers. Many people seem to con- 
sider them as public property, though cultivated at private ex- 
pense. It was but the other day that we saw a little girl, one of 
the village Sunday-scholars, moreover, put her hand within the 
railing of a garden and break ofi" several very fine plants, whose 
growth the owner had been watching with care and interest for 
many weeks, and which had just opened to reward his pains. 
Another instance of the same kind, but still more flagrant in de- 
oree, was observed a short time since : the offender was a full- 
grown man, dressed in fine broadcloth to boot, and evidently a 
stranger ; he passed before a pretty yard, gay with flowers, and 
unchecked by a single scruple of good manners, or good morals, 
proceeded to make up a handsome bouquet, without so much as 
