Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1856-05-22
Agritnltnrf.
A Rhapsody on Garden Seeds.
ny HENRY WARD BEEcHER.

There is something in the very sight Of g
genuine seed store that does us good. Even
when we lived in the West, and went 10 the
county store, where The annual box OF seed
from the Union Shaker Village" or the
later rival box from "Landreth," was dis
played. we felt relaxation, and smell gar
den long before it was tune 10 have one.
True a seed is a seed. But it is good
deal more than a seed. 1t has history,
and it is ready for another history. Awhole
summer is wrapped up in that pea A
whole summer wrought 10 form that bean.
A whole summer spent IL time shout that
ear of corn. II came forth smsil as nee
die. II stood treinulous and yellow fo!
weeks, it waxed apace in June, it rusiicd in
July, it stood up the noblest of all the grasses
in August, with many iringed band OF How
ers On its lap, ami with little baby ear at
its brest, with silken hair hanging down un-
cumbed yet untangled, and spotted and pow
dered with pollen.
Here are bins OF peas. We shall take
the Cedo Null for our early crop, and the
Champion Of England for our main supply
of marrowlat peas. We will add quart
each of Di shops Long Pod and The British
Queen. Do not think that we are looking
simply at these little shriyeled pellets. Each
pea is a lens. We see through il afar into
summer. There stands long rows of pea
vines, They would 'ain shake hands with
YOU and hold out little clusters OF sweet
blossoms; the only hands which they have.
We have seen the wind shaking hands with
them often.
Dear beans! Here you are. Though
you do come up wrong end first, after you
are up nothing can be more praiseworthy
than your conduct. Here is the Lima, full
of twiuins aspirations, for whose industry no
pole is long enough. Here are yellow,
black, speckIed, dun colored. red, bush
beans, the world renowned snaps. Beans
will be honorable SO long as succotash has
one firm friend. This boon the Indians
left us. Succota-h is liquid compromise
between corn and beans. 1t is perfect when
its flavor is that Of corn lapsing into bean,
and of bean just changing into corn. In
short, it 10 a dish whose flavor represents
the evanishing point of both beans and corn
towards mystic vegetable union in some
sphere. But to be perfect there should al
ways be hierophantic bit of pork, presid-
ing over the nuptials and giving its unctu-
Gus blessing.
In those little rough and rugged shells
reposes the germ of the Bsssane beet, best
of all early beets. The poets celebrate the
early blushes of the morning. Fur our
selves we have preference for the extra.
early turnip beet!
HoDest cabbage! Who could believe that
a mighty drumhead, or Wrinkled savey
,rould ever emerge frum that little brown
seed! Arstocrat.c caulifiower!-one Of the
few flowers that do best in pot.
AS we look about at all the stock of gar
den goods, celery, cucumber, eggplant, rad
ish, parsnips. lettuce, We almost hear the
bees hum, and hens grooming aud scratching
in the garden! Those pumpkins seed swell
as we look at hem into great red globes
md lie plump and Eat all over the corn
fields!
An, wicked waier-melons, ye lie stumb
ling blocks in the boys way! If tempting
is Itself sin, how many will be scored up
against you.
And here is the brilliant pepper. How
mach those little Ied-cheeked cherry pep
pers put one in mind of equally pretty cheek
ed maidens. Alas yes! That there is nc
disputing about tastes, is true to no one
more than to him who has bitten a pepper
pod.
can hear the insect buzzNg over the
beds of thyme, sage, summer savory. ] can
imagine myself under apple-trees in faint
afternoon of August, and smelling the fem
mel, dill, the. carroway, which every puff OF
wind brings from the garden. Here, too, is
lavender and pennyroyal, saffron for chill
dren and catnip for pet cats; balm and
mint for boys with stomach-ache; sweet
basil and marioram for dainty cooks; worm
wood, rue, honest, hoarhound. and elecam
pane for all sorts of ailments in all sorts OF
places.