Digging
potatoes is a pleasant, soothing occupation, but not poetical. It is
good for the mind, unless they are too small (as many of mine are), when
it begets a want of gratitude to the bountiful earth. What small
potatoes we all are, compared with what we might be! We don't plow deep
enough, any of us, for one thing. I shall put in the plow next year, and
give the tubers room enough. I think they felt the lack of it this year:
many of them seemed ashamed to come out so small. There is great
pleasure in turning out the brown-jacketed fellows into the sunshine of a
royal September day, and seeing them glisten as they lie thickly strewn
on the warm soil. Life has few such moments. But then they must be
picked up. The picking-up, in this world, is always the unpleasant part
of it.
Nature is "awful smart." I intend to be complimentary in saying so. She
shows it in little things. I have mentioned my attempt to put in a few
modest turnips, near the close of the season. I sowed the seeds, by the
way, in the most liberal manner. Into three or four short rows I presume
I put enough to sow an acre; and they all came up,--came up as thick as
grass, as crowded and useless as babies in a Chinese village. Of course,
they had to be thinned out; that is, pretty much all pulled up; and it
took me a long time; for it takes a conscientious man some time to decide
which are the best and healthiest plants to spare.
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