ut I told him
there was no use of affirming now; he might keep his oath till I wanted
it on the asparagus affidavit. In order to have this sort of asparagus,
you want to manure heavily in the early spring, fork it in, and
top-dress (that sounds technical) with a thick layer of chloride of
sodium: if you cannot get that, common salt will do, and the neighbors
will never notice whether it is the orthodox Na. Cl. 58-5, or not.

I scarcely dare trust myself to speak of the weeds. They grow as if the
devil was in them. I know a lady, a member of the church, and a very
good sort of woman, considering the subject condition of that class, who
says that the weeds work on her to that extent, that, in going
through her garden, she has the greatest difficulty in keeping the ten
commandments in anything like an unfractured condition. I asked her
which one, but she said, all of them: one felt like breaking the whole
lot. The sort of weed which I most hate (if I can be said to hate
anything which grows in my own garden) is the "pusley," a fat,
ground-clinging, spreading, greasy thing, and the most propagatious (it
is not my fault if the word is not in the dictionary) plant I know. I
saw a Chinaman, who came over with a returned missionary, and pretended
to be converted, boil a lot of it in a pot, stir in eggs, and mix and
eat it with relish,--"Me likee he." It will be a good thing to keep the
Chinamen on when they come to do our gardening. I only fear they will
cultivate it at the expense of the strawberries and melons. Who can say
that other weeds, which we despise, may not be the favorite food of some
remote people or tribe? We ought to abate our conceit. It is possible
that we destroy in our gardens that which is really of most value in
some other place. Perhaps, in like manner, our faults and vices are
virtues in some remote planet. I cannot see, however, that this thought
is of the slightest value to us here, any more than weeds are.

There is another subject which is forced upon my notice. I like
neighbors, and I like chickens; but I do not think they ought to be
united near a garden. Neighbors' hens in your garden are an annoyance.
Even if they did not scratch up the corn, and peck the strawberries,
and eat the tomatoes, it is not pleasant to see them straddling about
in their jerky, high-stepping, speculative manner, picking inquisitively
here and there. It is of no use to tell the neighbor that his hens eat
your tomatoes: it