interest,
profit, and pleasure, that you know not where to begin; and instead of
doing one thing, you dream of a dozen. I sent the "New England Farmer"
home, and, according to advice, bought a handful of tobacco, put it on a
shovel and set fire to it, and smoked the young shoots thoroughly,--as
well as the house and all that therein was. The experiment succeeded
perfectly. Any way, it killed the tomatoes. I am not so sure about their
colonists, but I do not believe they long survived the destruction of
their Arcadia. "It is just as well," I said, to encourage one whose
spirits depend upon me. "It is, indeed, far better. There are many kind
people in cities, who will sow the seeds, and tend the plants, and take
all our trouble, and give us as many plants as we want, for fifty cents.
Which, indeed, they did,--and I set the plants out mathematically, in a
square. But they are delicate, and need protection from untimely summer
frosts. Thriftless people set up stakes, bushes, and such hand-to-mouth
contrivances, and perhaps throw an old apron or a fragment of a
table-cloth over them. Practical, but prosaic people, cover them with
pots and pans during their fragile infancy; all of which makes an
unsightly feature in a landscape. I built a conservatory. And here let
me say to all my young friends who may design to devote themselves to
rural pursuits, Do not be narrowly content with the utilities, nor count
the hours spent upon the beautiful as time lost. For aught we know, the
fields might be just as fruitful, if they put forth only a gray and
dingy sedge. Instead of which, we have their green and velvet loveliness
starred all over with violet and daisy and dandelion. A hen-house is no
less serviceable because built in the Gothic style with suites of rooms.
A rough nomadic tent of poles and rags gives no surer protection to your
tender herbs than the stately and beautiful conservatory. That is why I
built a conservatory. The walls were of brick: there was a pile of
bricks in a corner of the barn. The roof was of glass: there was a pile
of _passees_ windows, ditto, ditto. The edifice was not quite so firm as
might be desired, owing to the circumstance of there being no
underpinning nor cement. Nor did its sides not sometimes deviate from
strictly right lines, as they were obliged to yield to the undulations
of the soil; but it was at least classical,--brick and windows. The only
serious trouble with it was, that one fine morning