for a "mere nothing." Now "mere nothings" mount up to a
"considerable something." The coal and coke consumed before they were
ripe cost $20. It is true we had them in July instead of September,
but we should have liked them quite as well in that month.

It was a bad grape year, too,--at least with us. I don't think we cut
more than twenty pounds weight. Hothouse grapes are not dear at $1 the
pound; but we should have had them equally good by waiting two months
later, when they would have cost us nothing.

Had we purchased the produce we received from our garden during the
year, it would have been worth two guineas weekly. Our peaches,
apricots, and nectarines, were abundant, and very fine. We had two
splendid walnut-trees, and a mulberry-tree of immense size, which was
an object of special abhorrence to "nurse," as for more than two
months in the summer the children's frocks, pinners, &c., were dyed
with the juice of the fruit. They could hardly pass near it in the
season without some of the ripe berries falling on their heads, and it
was hardly possible to prevent them escaping from her to pick them up.
Mulberry-pudding made its appearance often on the nursery-table, and
jars of mulberry-jam were provided to secure the same dainty through
the winter.

The luxury of a good garden can hardly be appreciated till you have
been in possession of one, more especially where there are many
children. The way we used to preserve currants, gooseberries, plums,
damsons, and, indeed, almost every description of fruit, was this: The
wide-mouth bottles which are sold for the purpose were filled with
fruit, six ounces of powdered loaf-sugar was shaken in among it; the
bottles were then tied down as closely as possible with bladder, and
placed up to the neck in a copper, or large saucepan, of cold water,
which was allowed to come slowly to the boil. They remained in it till
the water was quite cold, when they were taken from the water and
wiped quite dry. Before placing them in the store-room the bottle was
turned upside down, in order to see that they were perfectly
air-tight, for on this depends the fruit keeping good. The fruit will
sink down to about the middle of the bottle, and we once tried to fill
them up with some from another, but opening them admitted the air, and
the contents did not keep well. If properly done, they will be good at
the end of a year.

If any lady undertake the management of a four-acre farm, she must