Aphil 29, 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
full action yet; hereafter they will benefit by its generous 
influence. 
Sundries. —Stick and sow Peas, and plant Beans. A 
second crop of French Beans may also be put in, in case 
the former sown ones miscarry. Scarlet Runners may 
also be planted, and a pan or two of the same put into 
some warm sheltered place, to obtain plants from, to fill 
up any gaps in this crop which in many places is 
difficult to avoid. Attend closely to crops expected to 
bo making their appearance, and apply all the engines 
of destruction to those enemies the young brood aro 
liable to. Carrots , in some soils, aro a very precarious 
crop, and more than most crops have to be sown over 
again; it is better, when the sowing has been delayed to 
a late period, to go over tho ground about a week after¬ 
wards, and dust lime, soot, or similar caustic matter. 
To wait until you sec some of the plants, is very often 
to wait until most of them are gone; so much quicker- 
sighted are their foes than we are. 
Harden oft Tomatoes,ridge Cucumbers, Chilies, &c., and 
if any pans of Basil have been reared under glass, it 
may likewise be planted out after undergoing the transi¬ 
tion state. Remove stalks of Brocoli after cutting, and 
manure and dig the ground when vacant, and let the 
walks, edgings, and all other portions of the garden be 
put into that state of order anti neatness which makes a 
garden at this season an object worthy the notice of a 
visitor, as well as of promiso in a more substantial point 
of view. John Robson. 
FOOLS’ FENCE. 
By the Authoress of “ My Flowers ,” die. 
1 was very much interested, and extremely struck by an 
anecdote related to us but a lew days ago, by a person whose 
word no one who knows his character would for an instant 
doubt; and I am sure my readers will be as much interested 
in it as I was. It is upon a subject on which I have often 
laid a great stress, and which cannot be brought too fre¬ 
quently, or too strongly, before the peasantry and humbler 
classes of England; and I do not think that one one could 
more heartily rejoice and thank God, if the anecdote benefits 
one single person who reads it, than the kind and excellent 
man who related the story. 
The circumstances occurred some years ago, near- Reading, 
in Berkshire, and possibly some cottage gardener may re¬ 
member having heard of them. A man in a respectable 
trade, I believe he was a blacksmith, was a hard and deter¬ 
mined drinker. He froquented the public-house on Sundays 
as well as other days ; and was, of course, a man who re¬ 
garded not God, and who did evil in other ways too. His 
poor wife and children fared as all drinking men’s wives and 
children fare, and I am afraid too many poor families know 
very well how that is. 
One Sabbath-day, tliis man was drinking, as usual, at the 
public-house during the hours of public worship. The 
mistress of the house came Hastily into the tap-room, and 
said—' 11 Here are the police coming, and you must not be 
seen here. Come with me, and I will shut you up in my 
best parlour until they are gone.” The blacksmith, who 
feared not, and cared not for the eye of God, made haste to 
hide himself from that of man, and he remained a good 
while shut up in the parlour, until the landlady came to tell 
him the police were gone. He then said to her—“ Dear me, 
what a beautiful room this is ! I never was in such a one 
before. How did you ever buy such beautiful things as 
there are here ? ” “ We bought them,” replied the landlady, 
I “with fools' pence.” “ What is that,” asked the blacksmith, 
not quite catching her meaning. “ With the pence,” answered 
the. woman, “ that such as you spend at our house.” The 
| blacksmith, upon this, left the public-house, and went home, 
i and the landlady saw him no more. 
, A few years after this occurrence, a respectable looking 
man, with his wife and children, all well and handsomely 
i dressed for their station in fife, entered this same public- 
house, and the father addressing the landlady, enquired if 
\ she remembered him. She said she had some knowledge of 
G7 
liis face, but could not bring to mind who he was, or where 
she had seen him. “ Do you remember,” he said, “ a man,” 
giving his name, “ whom you shut up in your parlour, to hide 
him from the police one Sunday morning, some years ago ? 
I am that man, and 1 have brought my wife and children 
that you may see them now.” The surprise of the landlady 
was great. Sho remembered him, and expressed her pleasure 
at seeing him in such altered circumstances, and so well and 
happy in appearance. “ Yes,” ho said, “ I am an altered 
man, and I am come to thank you for it. All the good 
clothes you see us in are bought with fools’ pence. What I 
used to spend in drink, I have kept for my family ever since 
the day you last saw me, and we have thriven and lived com¬ 
fortably upon it. The words you spoke to me I never forgot. 
They struck me mightily, and I determined to save my fools’ 
pence, and not furnish other people’s rooms with it. I have 
fed and clothed my family respectably ever since, and I hope 
I shall never again spend a shilling upon beer in a public- 
house. I had time to look at myself in the great looking- 
glass in your parlour that day too, and such an object as I 
seemed in my dirty working-dress, unshaved, and unwashed, 
made me quite sick and ashamed of myself. I believe I 
shall never again be tho man I was then.” 
Now, these arc facts-, they are no invention; they aro stub 
born facts; and I hope my readers—those I mean, of course, 
who spend time at the beer-house—will take a lesson from 
the Berkshire blacksmith. When men complain that their 
families are ill-clothed, and hungry, and destitute, aud have 
no friend to help them, let them remember the “ fools’ 
pence," and consider whether they themselves might not be 
the best friends that their wives and children could gain, if 
they did not give then money to furnish other people’s smart 
parlours, and buy fine clothes for the beer-house keepers, 
j A sober man has very seldom a wretched family; but the 
man who drinks never can have a thriving one. And let 
him consider, when he sees the mistress of a public-house 
come out in a green gown and pink ribbons, as I have seen 
some of them appear, that his pence have helped to buy that 
gown, and trim that cap. May they not well be called 
“ fools' pence ? ” 
But this blacksmith’s case does not give mo perfect con¬ 
tentment. It is a valuable lesson, certainly, and does most 
clearly, pointedly, and convincingly, prove the madness and 
misery of drink, its mischievous effects, and the worldly ad¬ 
vantage of sobriety and steadiness; but there is a want in 
the narrative, a coldness and barrenness that seems to leave 
our minds hungry and unsatisfied. How is this ? What is 
the want we feel in so interesting and true a tale ? It is the 
want of spiritual influence, of religious principle, of holy 
motives. There is the “ sweeping ” and the “ garnishing ” 
of the man’s character; but there is also the “ emptiness ’’ 
of the soul; and it is this that disappoints us, and robs the 
facts of half their value. The reformation was an entire one, 
and a striking one, but it was built upon the sandy soil of 
worldly wisdom, and not upon the rock that winds and floods 
cannot beat down. Let me exhort my readers to perceive 
and consider this ; and in all the lessons they learn from 
passing events, to learn one of still higher importance, and 
still richer blessing—that without true and complete con¬ 
version of the heart to God, the most striking outward 
changes are only good in this world—they will avail us 
nothing in the next. “ Fools’ pence ’’ will buy us decent 
and comfortable clothes for time, but they will not buy us 
“ white raiment ” for eternity. Let us do all things “ as 
unto God,” for no other motive will be really and ever¬ 
lastingly blessed. We must put off' worldly good works 
when we die, and leave them to decay behind us ; but what 
we do for God’s sake, and from the influences of His Holy 
Spirit, shall “ follow ” us, and receive a just reward. 
Let us diligently save, and wisely use our “ fools’ pence,” 
but let us still more diligently treasure up, and profit by, the 
statutes aud precepts of God. 
ALLOTMENT FARMING.— May. 
By this time our cottage and allotment friends will have 
their gardens in first-rate order; if not, shame on them, 
unless they have been unwell. “ Through idleness of tho 
hands the house droppeth through,” says Solomon, and the 
