system of husbandry,' which some farmers are
tied down by their leases to follow?"

"Nothing to do with us," replies my friend,
smiling; "nor with farmers either if they
knew it. Those chaps who don't put a bit of
manure upon their land for years, are obliged
to vary their crops; for, you see, a plant
with its roots takes its own kind of nourishment
from the ground, just as a chemist
extracts one or two components from any
substance, and leaves the rest. When wheat
has had its feed, the farmer knows it is of
no use to sow wheat again. He plants tares
which extract something of what the wheat
has left; next turnips, and so on. Now we
supply our soil artificially with what the next
crop requires, and so can grow anything.
Thus we get first-rate crops, and three or
even four of some things in a year; whereas
the farmer will seldom get more than a single
crop."

Passing through a little patch of well
pruned fruit-trees, I observe that every bit
of ground beneath is planted with another
kind of cabbage—coleworts or "collards," as
a labourer calls them. "No space lost here,"
says my conductor. "These little plants,
which perhaps you might take for weeds,
growing in this narrow strip of ground,
between the gooseberry bushes and the path,
are brocoli. While they are so young they
can find nourishment enough here—thick as
they are. They will be thinned and planted
out in the fields, very soon. Here is a patch
of ground, you see, already planted with
them."

"I suppose these weeds among them do no
harm, while the plant is so young."

"Maybe weeds there wouldn't hurt them
now; for there is more nourishment in the
ground than they want, planted at that
distance apart. But if weeds wouldn't hurt
them, we say something more useful wouldn't
hurt them. This is not a weed: it is celery.
They can grow very well together, till the
brocoli gets bigger, and wants all the strength
of the soil to itself: then we shall remove
the celery."

"You take advantage of everything."

"Must do so, in these Free-trade days," says
my companion, sitting down upon a hand-
barrow, and rubbing the perspiration from
his forehead with a pocket-handkerchief. "If
we couldn't beat our neighbours in a fair
trial, we wouldn't be so shabby as to ask the
Government to help us: that's how I look at
it. But Free-trade puts us all upon our
mettle; Belgium and the South of France
have sent some first-rate things to our
markets this year. What do I care? I set
about it and grow as good." Mr. Trench
paused. "It don't do," he added, thoughtfully,
"to waste as much as a leaf or a root,
that would go into the manure heap, I assure
you. There is my neighbour, Mr. Kutch,
who has been in the East Indies. He is a
man of property, and it is his whim to turn
market-gardener. He makes up his books
every year and finds himself just a hundred
pounds out of pocket. And why? Because
he's not on the ground himself, as we are,
from morning till night; and doesn't take
such care to prevent waste."

"This thin green down, with patches of
white, here and there, as if some workmen
from the lime-kilns had been trespassing in.
it, is onions, I suppose?"

"One kind of onions. A very different
sort from those with the great seedpods at
the top. It is of no use my troubling you
with the various names of our things. Some
have no end of varieties, chiefly named after
the gardeners who have imported or produced
them. Fruit-trees, as you know, change their
very nature by cultivation—as for instance,
the peach, whose fruit in a wild state is
poisonous. So plants by cultivation change
in quality, form, and colour."

"Though never their primary structure,"
I interrupt.

"Quite right. Now, in the rivalry going
on among market-gardeners and nurserymen,
constantly experimenting too as they are,
infinite varieties of everything grown are
necessarily produced."

"You will of course choose the best."

''Some kinds are equally good. Others are
known for certain qualities, for which we
choose them as we want them. Some are by
their nature fit for earlier or later growing
than others; and as our object is to keep the
markets supplied, we grow several, sorts of
most things. In this way we have various
crops of the same vegetable, which we know
will come due every week while the season
lasts."

Walking on through other gardens, all
planted with the same regularity and neatness,
we notice in every patch one or two labourers,
chiefly women. Some are hoeing amongst crops
so fine and thickly sown, that it is a marvel
how the greatest care can prevent their cutting
them down with the weeds. Others are propping
bell-shaped and square glass-lights with
bits of wood, to let the air in to the plants
beneath. Some men are perseveringly watering,
one by one, tomatoes, or love-apple
plants, against a wall. Others in deep alleys,
among rows of beds, as regular as a ground
plan of the city of Philadelphia, are carefully
picking weeds with the hand; while a few, I
see on coming nearer, are cutting asparagus.
Wherever a blue top has just forced its way
through the mould, a woman thrusts in,
sideways, a long steel instrument, notched at the
end, and saws at the stem, some inches under
the ground. The notched cutter, I am told,
leaves a ragged surface where the stem is
severed, which heals more readily than a
smooth cut—the mould stanching the sap
more completely, and preventing it from
bleeding. These asparagus roots have been
three years in the ground, and have only
yielded shoots strong enough to bear cutting