It is, however, to be expected,
that retributive justice would visit the innocent as well as the
guilty of an offending family. This is only another proof of the
wide sweep of moral forces. I suppose that it is as necessary in the
vegetable world as it is elsewhere to avoid the appearance of evil.
In offering you the fruit of my garden, which has been gathered from
week to week, without much reference to the progress of the crops or
the drought, I desire to acknowledge an influence which has lent half
the charm to my labor. If I were in a court of justice, or
injustice, under oath, I should not like to say, that, either in the
wooing days of spring, or under the suns of the summer solstice, you
had been, either with hoe, rake, or miniature spade, of the least use
in the garden; but your suggestions have been invaluable, and,
whenever used, have been paid for. Your horticultural inquiries have
been of a nature to astonish the vegetable world, if it listened, and
were a constant inspiration to research. There was almost nothing
that you did not wish to know; and this, added to what I wished to
know, made a boundless field for discovery. What might have become
of the garden, if your advice had been followed, a good Providence
only knows; but I never worked there without a consciousness that you
might at any moment come down the walk, under the grape-arbor,
bestowing glances of approval, that were none the worse for not being
critical; exercising a sort of superintendence that elevated
gardening into a fine art; expressing a wonder that was as
complimentary to me as it was to Nature; bringing an atmosphere which
made the garden a region of romance, the soil of which was set apart
for fruits native to climes unseen.
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