When the plants began to come up, he thought they looked kind of queer, but he waited until they grew larger, and then, as he felt certain something was wrong, he sent for a professional gardener to make an examination.

“Mr. Hoops,” he said, “cast your eye over those turnips and tell me what you think is the matter with them.”

“Turnip!” exclaimed Hoops.  “Turnip!  Why, bless your soul, man! that’s not turnip.  That’s nothin’ but pokeberry.  You’ve got enough pokeberry in that bed to last a million years.”

“Well, Mr. Hoops, come over here to this bed.  Now, how does that celery strike you?  The munificent Federal government is spreading that celery all over this land of the free.  Great, isn’t it?”

“Well, well!” said Hoops; “and they shoved that off on you for celery, did they?  Too bad!  It’s nothin’ on earth but pokeberry.  This is the California kind—­the deadliest pokeberry that was ever invented.”

“Are you sure you’re not mistaken, Mr. Hoops?  But you haven’t seen my beets there in the adjoining bed.  The seeds of those beets were sent from Honolulu by our consul there.  He reports that the variety attains gigantic size.”

“Really, now,” said Hoops, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but to be fair and square with you, as between man and man, those are not beets, you know.  They are the Mexican pokeberry.  I pledge you my word it’s the awfulest variety of that plant that grows.  It’ll stay in this yer garden for ever.  You’ll never get rid of it.”

“This seems a little hard, Mr. Hoops.  But I’d like you to inspect my cabbages.  They’re all right, I know.  The commissioner of agriculture got the seed from Borneo.  They are the curly variety, I think.  You boil them with pork, and they cut down beautifully for slaw.  Look at these plants, will you?  Ain’t they splendid?”

“Mr. Butterwick,” said Hoops, “I’ve got some bad news to break to you, but I hope you’ll stand it like a man.  These afflictions come to all of us in this life, sir.  They are meant for our good.  But really, sir, those are not Borneo cabbages.  Cabbages!  Why, thunder and lightnin’!  They are merely a mixture of California and Mexican pokeberry with the ordinary kind, and a little Osage orange sprinkled through.  It’s awful, sir!  Why, you’ve got about two acres of pokeberry and not a blessed bit of cabbage or turnips among them.”

“Mr. Hoops, this is terrible news; and do you know I gave a lot of those seeds to Potts and Coffin?”

“I know you did; and I seen Colonel Coffin this mornin’ with a shot-gun goin’ round askin’ people if they knew where he could find you.”

“Find me!  What do you mean?”

“Well, you see, sir, that there onion seed that you gave him was really the seed of the silver maple tree, and it’s growed up so thick all over his garden that a cat can’t crawl through it.  There’s about forty million shoots and suckers in that garden, and they’ll have to be cut out with a handsaw.  It’ll take about a year to do it.”