iends to
whom I intended to send handsome specimens of these first fruits of my
experiments in farming; the Reillys, the Lynches, the Chapins, the
Maxwells, the Scotts, the Fayes, the Deweys, the Morrises, the
Millards, the Larneds, the Fletchers, the Ways--these and other
fortunate cronies were to be made recipients of my bounty in case the
fruit held out. I will say nothing of the pleasing future I depicted
for the sunflowers; the sunflower is a particular favorite of mine,
presumably because it is one of the very few flowers I am capable of
identifying.

My impulse, when beholding the tomato vines and sunflowers cut down in
the innocence of youth, was to determine not to pursue gardening
further. To this mood succeeded a fit of anger, and I was so outraged
by the destruction I beheld that I would cheerfully have given any sum
of money I could have borrowed of my neighbors for information leading
to the apprehension of the perpetrator of this brutal wrong.

As it was, I wrote out an offer of five dollars reward upon a sheet of
letter paper and nailed it with four large wire nails to a maple tree
in front of the place, where all passers-by could see and read it.
Later in the day I went to tell Fadda Pierce of the trouble which had
befallen me, and he consoled me with the assurance that the work of
destruction had been wrought--not by a human being, as I had surmised,
but by cutworms, a kind of reptile that plies its nefarious trade
between two days for no other apparent purpose than that of making
gentlemen farmers like myself miserable.

Fadda Pierce told me that Paris green was an effective antidote against
these destructive worms, and I have ordered a barrel of it from the
city. I intend to spread a layer of this Paris green over all our
flower and vegetable beds; the contrast thus presented to the dull,
sere brown of our lawn will be very pleasing to the eye. In fact, I am
not sure that it would not be cheaper to color our whole lawn with
Paris green than to attempt to revise it with water, which can be used
with legal liberality only between the first of November and the first
of May.

By way of illustrating what a mockery our national Department of
Agriculture is, I will say that I wrote to Secretary Morton about the
cutworms and asked that he suggest an antidote against the same.
Although five weeks have elapsed since I dispatched that letter I have
had no word of any kind from the Department of Agricul