80 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
shall make a radish, or lettuce, or cucumber the very 
completion of table enjoyments. 
Then think of the beautiful gourds that always 
astonish you and everybody else, at their size and rapi¬ 
dity of growth, and that admit of half-a-dozen modes of 
cooking yet always delicious; the fresh summer cab¬ 
bages that take one leap from the morning dew to the 
bubbling pot; and, above all things, who can know the 
real flavour of peas but those who grow them within 
sight from the kitchen door, and who eat them an hour 
after the gathering ? You have only to tell a friend you 
will dine on such a day on peas “out of your own 
garden,” and hefll go any number of miles to taste your 
marrowy, bright green beauties, that have never been 
fermented in bushel baskets, or shaken out of flavour by 
the jolting of the market cart. Talk of high art and 
classic gardening, the sight of a row of well-grown kale, 
or a broad patch of kidney beans just coming into flower, 
or well-trained fruits on a south wall, swelling with 
luscious juices, and almost crying, “Eat me, eat me!” is 
one that cheers the heart of man, and appeals as strongly 
to the sympathies of a noble duke as to a ploughman in 
want of a dinner. The matrons say, “The way to a 
boy*s heart is through his belly;” but the adage applies 
to human kind of any age. These are very material con¬ 
siderations. W z do like to see something eatable in a 
garden; and the man who makes a hobby of raising the 
best kinds of edibles, whether of the class of necessities 
or luxuries, adds to the productive power of his native 
land, increases the national resources, and in his day and 
generation does some good for the vrorld. Who can 
