I am more and more impressed with the moral qualities of vegetables, and
contemplate forming a science which shall rank with comparative anatomy
and comparative philology,--the science of comparative vegetable
morality. We live in an age of protoplasm. And, if life-matter is
essentially the same in all forms of life, I purpose to begin early, and
ascertain the nature of the plants for which I am responsible. I will
not associate with any vegetable which is disreputable, or has not some
quality that can contribute to my moral growth. I do not care to be seen
much with the squashes or the dead-beets. Fortunately I can cut down any
sorts I do not like with the hoe, and, probably, commit no more sin in
so doing than the Christians did in hewing down the Jews in the Middle
Ages.
This matter of vegetable rank has not been at all studied as it should
be. Why do we respect some vegetables and despise others, when all of
them come to an equal honor or ignominy on the table? The bean is a
graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans into
poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. There is no dignity in the
bean. Corn, which, in my garden, grows alongside the bean, and, so far
as I can see, with no affectation of superiority, is, however, the child
of song. It waves in all literature. But mix it with beans, and its high
tone is gone. Succotash is vulgar. It is the bean in it. The bean is a
vulgar vegetable, without culture, or any flavor of high society among
vegetables. Then there is the cool cucumber, like so many people, good
for nothing when it is ripe and the wildness has gone out of it. How
inferior in quality it is to the melon, which grows upon a similar
vine, is of a like watery consistency, but is not half so valuable! The
cucumber is a sort of low comedian in a company where the melon is a
minor gentleman. I might also contrast the celery with the potato. The
associations are as opposite as the dining-room of the duchess and the
cabin of the peasant. I admire the potato, both in vine and blossom; but
it is not aristocratic. I began digging my potatoes, by the way, about
the 4th of July; and I fancy I have discovered the right way to do it. I
treat the potato just as I would a cow. I do not pull them up, and shake
them out, and destroy them; but I dig carefully at the side of the hill,
remove the fruit which is grown, leaving the vine undisturbed: and my
theory is, that it will go on bearing, and submitting to my exactions,
until the frost cuts it down. It is a game that one would not undertake
with a vegetable of tone.
The lettuce is to me a most interesting study. Lettuce is like
conversation: it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely
notice the bitter in it. Lettuce, like most talkers, is, however, apt to
run rapidly to seed. Blessed is that sort which comes to a head, and so
remains, like a few people I know; growing more solid and satisfactory
and tender at the same time, and whiter at the center, and crisp in
their maturity. Lettuce, like conversation, requires a good deal of oil
to avoid friction, and keep the company smooth; a pinch of attic salt; a
dash of pepper; a quantity of mustard and vinegar, by all means, but so
mixed that you will notice no sharp contrasts; and a trifle of sugar.
You can put anything, and the more things the better, into salad, as
into a conversation; but everything depends upon the skill of mixing. I
feel that I am in the best society when I am with lettuce. It is in the
select circle of vegetables. The tomato appears well on the table; but
you do not want to ask its origin. It is a most agreeable parvenu. Of
course, I have said nothing about the berries. They live in another and
more ideal region; except, perhaps, the currant. Here we see, that,
even among berries, there are degrees of breeding. The currant is well
enough, clear as truth, and exquisite in color; but I ask you to notice
how far it is from the exclusive hauteur of the aristocratic strawberry,
and the native refinement of the quietly elegant raspberry.
I do not know that chemistry, searching for protoplasm, is able to
discover the tendency of vegetables. It can only be found out by outward
observation. I confess that I am suspicious of the bean, for instance.
There are signs in it of an unregulated life. I put up the most
attractive sort of poles for my Limas. They stand high and straight,
like church-spires, in my theological garden,--lifted up; and some of
them have even budded, like Aaron's rod. No church-steeple in a
New England village was ever better fitted to draw to it the rising
generation on Sunday, than those poles to lift up my beans towards
heaven. Some of them did run up the sticks seven feet, and then
straggled off into the air in a wanton manner; but more than half of
them went gallivanting off to the neighboring grape-trellis, and wound
their tendrils with the tendrils of the grape, with a disregard of the
proprieties of life which is a satire upon human nature. And the grape
is morally no better. I think the ancients, who were not troubled with
the recondite mystery of protoplasm, were right in the mythic union of
Bacchus and Venus.
Talk about the Darwinian theory of development, and the principle
of natural selection! I should like to see a garden let to run in
accordance with it. If I had left my vegetables and weeds to a free
fight, in which the strongest specimens only should come to maturity,
and the weaker go to the wall, I can clearly see that I should have had
a pretty mess of it. It would have been a scene of passion and license
and brutality. The “pusley” would have strangled the strawberry; the
upright corn, which has now ears to hear the guilty beating of the
hearts of the children who steal the raspberries, would have been
dragged to the earth by the wandering bean; the snake-grass would have
left no place for the potatoes under ground; and the tomatoes would have
been swamped by the lusty weeds. With a firm hand, I have had to make my
own “natural selection.” Nothing will so well bear watching as a garden,
except a family of children next door. Their power of selection beats
mine. If they could read half as well as they can steal awhile away, I
should put up a notice, “Children, beware! There is Protoplasm here.”
But I suppose it would have no effect. I believe they would eat
protoplasm as quick as anything else, ripe or green. I wonder if this is
going to be a cholera-year. Considerable cholera is the only thing that
would let my apples and pears ripen. Of course I do not care for the
fruit; but I do not want to take the responsibility of letting so much
“life-matter,” full of crude and even wicked vegetable-human tendencies,
pass into the composition of the neighbors' children, some of whom may
be as immortal as snake-grass. There ought to be a public meeting about
this, and resolutions, and perhaps a clambake. At least, it ought to be
put into the catechism, and put in strong.