lso like
a selection from the ten commandments, in big letters, posted up
conspicuously, and a few traps, that will detain, but not maim, for the
benefit of those who cannot read. But what is most important is,
that the ladies should crochet nets to cover over the strawberries. A
good-sized, well-managed festival ought to produce nets enough to cover
my entire beds; and I can think of no other method of preserving the
berries from the birds next year. I wonder how many strawberries it
would need for a festival and whether they would cost more than the
nets.

I am more and more impressed, as the summer goes on, with the inequality
of man's fight with Nature; especially in a civilized state. In
savagery, it does not much matter; for one does not take a square
hold, and put out his strength, but rather accommodates himself to
the situation, and takes what he can get, without raising any dust, or
putting himself into everlasting opposition. But the minute he begins to
clear a spot larger than he needs to sleep in for a night, and to try to
have his own way in the least, Nature is at once up, and vigilant, and
contests him at every step with all her ingenuity and unwearied vigor.
This talk of subduing Nature is pretty much nonsense. I do not intend
to surrender in the midst of the summer campaign, yet I cannot but think
how much more peaceful my relations would now be with the primal forces,
if I had, let Nature make the garden according to her own notion.
(This is written with the thermometer at ninety degrees, and the weeds
starting up with a freshness and vigor, as if they had just thought of
it for the first time, and had not been cut down and dragged out every
other day since the snow went off.)

We have got down the forests, and exterminated savage beasts; but Nature
is no more subdued than before: she only changes her tactics,--uses
smaller guns, so to speak. She reenforces herself with a variety of
bugs, worms, and vermin, and weeds, unknown to the savage state, in
order to make war upon the things of our planting; and calls in the
fowls of the air, just as we think the battle is won, to snatch away the
booty. When one gets almost weary of the struggle, she is as fresh as at
the beginning,--just, in fact, ready for the fray. I, for my part, begin
to appreciate the value of frost and snow; for they give the husbandman
a little peace, and enable him, for a season, to contemplate his
incessant foe subdued. I do not wo