The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1873-09-19
THE sEGZS.
BEL AIR, Nd. SEPTEMBER, 18Th 1873.
Troubles and VexatiOns of an Amateur
Gardener.
BY THE DANBURY NEWS MAN.

The chief charm of having garden of
your own is the fresh state of the vc9cta-
bles which daily garnish your table Any
one who has always depended upon store
for his supply does not have the faintest
conception of the superior flavor, tone and
elasticity of vegetables gathered fresh every
morning from your own garden. Aside
from this benefit, gardening is the most
health giving occupation known to man,
unless we except that Of physician
Which we don't. There is u man who
lives on the other side of our street who
has garden and has fresh vegetables every
day, our folks say. We don't know any
thing about that, but we do know he has
garden, because we see him out in it
every morning, in his shirt sleeves and slip
pers, picking cucumber and squash bugs.
We know when he gets hold of one by the
way he shuts up his mouth and fingers.
Sometimes he doesn't catch the one he is
after, and sometimes he makes half dozen
passes at one bug. Every time he makes
one of those passes he says something. The
first remark is not very plainly heard, but
the next is quite Sc, and the observation
that follows after the sixth unfortunate
pass, appears to 60 completely through our
head. Hejumps around this way for about
an hour, and having got his blood up to
fever heat goes in and drinks cup of boil
ing coffee and then goes to business. At
noon he goes out there to kill couple
more bugs, but doesn't do it, He finds
two hens from the next house in the Gu
cumber patch. They have scratched down
to the cool earth and thrown the parched
soil of two cucumber hills over their backs,
and with one eye closed in speculative
way, are thinking of the intense heat and
the short grass crop. When they see him
and the preparations of welcome he has
hastily got together, they get up and leave.
The first thing he throws at them knocks
limb from choice pear tree, and the next
thing, which is generally a pail, goes
through glass cover to some choice flow
er seeds, and loses its bail. He then gets
into the house and gets some more boiling
coffee, and says the man next door is some
thing we never put in print, and goes to
business again. At night he comes home
and kills bugs until supper time, and then
goes up with his fingers smelling as if he
had shaken hands with twelve hundred
bed bugs. He keeps his boy home from
school to watch the garden, and guard it
against the encroachment of straying cat
tie. The boy gets several other boys to
come over and help him. They take
half dozen sheets out ofthe wash and put
up circus in the back part of the yard,
and some vicious boy who hasn't pins
enough to get in, leaves the front gate open,
and when the circus is in the midst of its
glory, the cry of a "cow in the GARDEN"
breaks up the performance, and sends both
artists and audience in pursuit Of the beast.
When our neighbor comes home that night
to gather his vegetables fresh from the gar
den, and smash bugs with his finger and
thumb, and goes out and looks at the des-
truction, it is altogether likely the first
thing he thinks of is the danger in eating
store vegetables which have been picked
some days before, and allowed to swclter
and wither in noxious barrels, and how
much better it is to have everything fresh
from the garden. But we are not certain.
Neither is the proprietor of the circus.