Speaking of those yellow squash-bugs, I think I disheartened them by covering the plants so deep with soot and wood-ashes that they could not find them; and I am in doubt if I shall ever see the plants again.  But I have heard of another defense against the bugs.  Put a fine wire-screen over each hill, which will keep out the bugs and admit the rain.  I should say that these screens would not cost much more than the melons you would be likely to get from the vines if you bought them; but then think of the moral satisfaction of watching the bugs hovering over the screen, seeing, but unable to reach the tender plants within.  That is worth paying for.

I left my own garden yesterday, and went over to where Polly was getting the weeds out of one of her flower-beds.  She was working away at the bed with a little hoe.  Whether women ought to have the ballot or not (and I have a decided opinion on that point, which I should here plainly give, did I not fear that it would injure my agricultural influence), ’I am compelled to say that this was rather helpless hoeing.  It was patient, conscientious, even pathetic hoeing; but it was neither effective nor finished.  When completed, the bed looked somewhat as if a hen had scratched it:  there was that touching unevenness about it.  I think no one could look at it and not be affected.  To be sure, Polly smoothed it off with a rake, and asked me if it was n’t nice; and I said it was.  It was not a favorable time for me to explain the difference between puttering hoeing, and the broad, free sweep of the instrument, which kills the weeds, spares the plants, and loosens the soil without leaving it in holes and hills.  But, after all, as life is constituted, I think more of Polly’s honest and anxious care of her plants than of the most finished gardening in the world.

FIFTH WEEK

I left my garden for a week, just at the close of the dry spell.  A season of rain immediately set in, and when I returned the transformation was wonderful.  In one week every vegetable had fairly jumped forward.  The tomatoes which I left slender plants, eaten of bugs and debating whether they would go backward or forward, had become stout and lusty, with thick stems and dark leaves, and some of them had blossomed.  The corn waved like that which grows so rank out of the French-English mixture at Waterloo.  The squashes—­I will not speak of the squashes.  The most remarkable growth was the asparagus.  There was not a spear above ground when I went away; and now it had sprung up, and gone to seed, and there were stalks higher than my head.  I am entirely aware of the value of words, and of moral obligations.  When I say that the asparagus had grown six feet in seven days, I expect and wish to be believed.  I am a little particular about the statement; for, if there is any prize offered for asparagus at the next agricultural fair, I wish to compete, —­speed to govern.