and hoe, or contemplatively rakes the warm and fragrant loam, is better than much medicine.  The buds are coming out on the bushes round about; the blossoms of the fruit trees begin to show; the blood is running up the grapevines in streams; you can smell the Wild flowers on the near bank; and the birds are flying and glancing and singing everywhere.  To the open kitchen door comes the busy housewife to shake a white something, and stands a moment to look, quite transfixed by the delightful sights and sounds.  Hoeing in the garden on a bright, soft May day, when you are not obliged to, is nearly equal to the delight of going trouting.

Blessed be agriculture! if one does not have too much of it.  All literature is fragrant with it, in a gentlemanly way.  At the foot of the charming olive-covered hills of Tivoli, Horace (not he of Chappaqua) had a sunny farm:  it was in sight of Hadrian’s villa, who did landscape gardening on an extensive scale, and probably did not get half as much comfort out of it as Horace did from his more simply tilled acres.  We trust that Horace did a little hoeing and farming himself, and that his verse is not all fraudulent sentiment.  In order to enjoy agriculture, you do not want too much of it, and you want to be poor enough to have a little inducement to work moderately yourself.  Hoe while it is spring, and enjoy the best anticipations.  It is not much matter if things do not turn out well.

FIRST WEEK

Under this modest title, I purpose to write a series of papers, some of which will be like many papers of garden-seeds, with nothing vital in them, on the subject of gardening; holding that no man has any right to keep valuable knowledge to himself, and hoping that those who come after me, except tax-gatherers and that sort of person, will find profit in the perusal of my experience.  As my knowledge is constantly increasing, there is likely to be no end to these papers.  They will pursue no orderly system of agriculture or horticulture, but range from topic to topic, according to the weather and the progress of the weeds, which may drive me from one corner of the garden to the other.

The principal value of a private garden is not understood.  It is not to give the possessor vegetables or fruit (that can be better and cheaper done by the market-gardeners), but to teach him patience and philosophy and the higher virtues, hope deferred and expectations blighted, leading directly to resignation and sometimes to alienation.  The garden thus becomes a moral agent, a test of character, as it was in the beginning.  I shall keep this central truth in mind in these articles.  I mean to have a moral garden, if it is not a productive one,—­one that shall teach, O my brothers!  O my sisters! the great lessons of life.