n my garden; and it was there before I went into it. It
is the bunch, or joint, or snakegrass,--whatever it is called. As I do
not know the names of all the weeds and plants, I have to do as Adam did
in his garden,--name things as I find them. This grass has a slender,
beautiful stalk: and when you cut it down, or pull up a long root of it,
you fancy it is got rid of; but in a day or two it will come up in the
same spot in half a dozen vigorous blades. Cutting down and pulling up
is what it thrives on. Extermination rather helps it. If you follow a
slender white root, it will be found to run under the ground until it
meets another slender white root; and you will soon unearth a network
of them, with a knot somewhere, sending out dozens of sharp-pointed,
healthy shoots, every joint prepared to be an independent life and
plant. The only way to deal with it is to take one part hoe and two
parts fingers, and carefully dig it out, not leaving a joint anywhere.
It will take a little time, say all summer, to dig out thoroughly a
small patch; but if you once dig it out, and keep it out, you will have
no further trouble.

I have said it was total depravity. Here it is. If you attempt to pull
up and root out any sin in you, which shows on the surface,--if it does
not show, you do not care for it,--you may have noticed how it runs into
an interior network of sins, and an ever-sprouting branch of them roots
somewhere; and that you cannot pull out one without making a general
internal disturbance, and rooting up your whole being. I suppose it is
less trouble to quietly cut them off at the top--say once a week, on
Sunday, when you put on your religious clothes and face so that no one
will see them, and not try to eradicate the network within.

Remark.--This moral vegetable figure is at the service of any clergyman
who will have the manliness to come forward and help me at a day's
hoeing on my potatoes. None but the orthodox need apply.

I, however, believe in the intellectual, if not the moral, qualities of
vegetables, and especially weeds. There was a worthless vine that
(or who) started up about midway between a grape-trellis and a row of
bean-poles, some three feet from each, but a little nearer the trellis.
When it came out of the ground, it looked around to see what it should
do. The trellis was already occupied. The bean-pole was empty. There
was evidently a little the best chance of light, air, and sole
proprietorship on the