The cabbage is the rose of Holland.I admire the force by which it compacts its crisp leaves into a solid head.The secret of it would be priceless to the world.We should see less expansive foreheads with nothing within.Even the largest cabbages are not always the best.But I mention these things, not from any sympathy I have with the vegetables named, but to show how hard it is to go contrary to the expectations of society.Society expects every man to have certain things in his garden.Not to raise cabbage is as if one had no pew in church.Perhaps we shall come some day to free churches and free gardens; when I can show my neighbor through my tired garden, at the end of the season, when skies are overcast, and brown leaves are swirling down, and not mind if he does raise his eyebrows when he observes, "Ah! I see you have none of this, and of that." At present we want the moral courage to plant only what we need; to spend only what will bring us peace, regardless of what is going on over the fence.We are half ruined by conformity; but we should be wholly ruined without it; and I presume I shall make a garden next year that will be as popular as possible.
And this brings me to what I see may be a crisis in life.I begin to feel the temptation of experiment.Agriculture, horticulture, floriculture,--these are vast fields, into which one may wander away, and never be seen more.It seemed to me a very simple thing, this gardening; but it opens up astonishingly.It is like the infinite possibilities in worsted-work.Polly sometimes says to me, "I wish you would call at Bobbin's, and match that skein of worsted for me, when you are in town." Time was, I used to accept such a commission with alacrity and self-confidence.I went to Bobbin's, and asked one of his young men, with easy indifference, to give me some of that.
The young man, who is as handsome a young man as ever I looked at, and who appears to own the shop, and whose suave superciliousness would be worth everything to a cabinet minister who wanted to repel applicants for place, says, "I have n't an ounce: I have sent to Paris, and I expect it every day.I have a good deal of difficulty in getting that shade in my assortment." To think that he is in communication with Paris, and perhaps with Persia! Respect for such a being gives place to awe.I go to another shop, holding fast to my scarlet clew.There I am shown a heap of stuff, with more colors and shades than I had supposed existed in all the world.What a blaze of distraction! I have been told to get as near the shade as I could;and so I compare and contrast, till the whole thing seems to me about of one color.But I can settle my mind on nothing.The affair assumes a high degree of importance.I am satisfied with nothing but perfection.I don't know what may happen if the shade is not matched.I go to another shop, and another, and another.At last a pretty girl, who could make any customer believe that green is blue, matches the shade in a minute.I buy five cents worth.That was the order.Women are the most economical persons that ever were.I have spent two hours in this five-cent business; but who shall say they were wasted, when I take the stuff home, and Polly says it is a perfect match, and looks so pleased, and holds it up with the work, at arm's length, and turns her head one side, and then takes her needle, and works it in? Working in, I can see, my own obligingness and amiability with every stitch.Five cents is dirt cheap for such a pleasure.
The things I may do in my garden multiply on my vision.How fascinating have the catalogues of the nurserymen become! Can Iraise all those beautiful varieties, each one of which is preferable to the other? Shall I try all the kinds of grapes, and all the sorts of pears? I have already fifteen varieties of strawberries (vines);and I have no idea that I have hit the right one.Must I subscribe to all the magazines and weekly papers which offer premiums of the best vines? Oh, that all the strawberries were rolled into one, that I could inclose all its lusciousness in one bite! Oh for the good old days when a strawberry was a strawberry, and there was no perplexity about it! There are more berries now than churches; and no one knows what to believe.I have seen gardens which were all experiment, given over to every new thing, and which produced little or nothing to the owners, except the pleasure of expectation.People grow pear-trees at great expense of time and money, which never yield them more than four pears to the tree.The fashions of ladies'
bonnets are nothing to the fashions of nurserymen.He who attempts to follow them has a business for life; but his life may be short.
If I enter upon this wide field of horticultural experiment, I shall leave peace behind; and I may expect the ground to open, and swallow me and all my fortune.May Heaven keep me to the old roots and herbs of my forefathers! Perhaps in the world of modern reforms this is not possible; but I intend now to cultivate only the standard things, and learn to talk knowingly of the rest.Of course, one must keep up a reputation.I have seen people greatly enjoy themselves, and elevate themselves in their own esteem, in a wise and critical talk about all the choice wines, while they were sipping a decoction, the original cost of which bore no relation to the price of grapes.