PEEKSKILL, _May 28th, 1868_.
MY DEAR MR. BONNER: You must expect no article from me this week. I am
engaged. I was never more busy in my life. Let me relate my
occupations. At about half past three in the morning, I wake. The
light is just coming. I do not care for that, as I do not propose to
get up at such an hour. But the birds _do_ care. They evidently wind
up their singing apparatus over night. For, when the first bird breaks
the silence, in an instant the rest go off, as if a spring had been
touched which moved them all. Was ever such noise! There are robins
without count, wood-thrushes, orioles, sparrows, bobolinks,
meadow-larks, bluebirds, yellow-birds, wrens, warblers, catbirds (as
the Northern mocking-bird is called), martins, twittering swallows.
Think of the noise made by mixing all these bird-notes together! Add a
rooster, and a solemn old crow to carry the bass. Then consider that
of each kind there are scores, and of some kinds hundreds, within ear
reach, and you will have some faint conception of the opening chant of
the day.
You may not believe that I wake so early. But I do. You may be still
less inclined to believe that, after listening for ten minutes to this
mixture, I again go to sleep. But I solemnly do. Nor do I think of
getting up before six o’clock. Whether I should emerge even then, if
it were not for the savory odor that begins to steal through my
cottage, I cannot tell. After breakfast, there are so many things to
be done first that I neglect them all. The morning is so fine, the
young leaves are so beautiful, the bloom on the orchards is so
gorgeous, the sounds and sights are so many and so winning, that I am
apt to sit down on the veranda, for just a moment, and for just
another, and for a series of them, until an hour goes by. Do not blame
me! Do not laugh at such farming and such a farmer. The soil overhead
bears larger and better crops, for a sensible man, than does the soil
under feet. There are blossoms in the clouds. There is fruit upon
invisible trees, to those who know how to pluck it.
But then sky-gazing and this dallying with the landscape will not do.
What crowds of things require the eye and hand! Flowers must be
transplanted. Flower-seeds must be sown; shrubs and trees pruned;
vines looked after; a walk taken over the hill to see after some
evergreens, with many pauses to gaze upon the landscape, and many
birds watched as they are confidentially exhibiting their domestic
traits before you. The kittens, too, at the barn, must be visited, the
calf, the new cow. Then every gardener knows how much time is consumed
in noticing the new plants; for instance, I have some eight new
strawberries that need watching, each one purporting to be a world’s
wonder. I am quite anxious about eight or ten new kinds of clematis;
two new species of honeysuckle; eight or ten new and rare evergreens;
and ever so many other things,—shrubs and flowers. What shall I say of
the new peas, new beans, rare cucumbers, early melons, extraordinary
potatoes?
Speaking of potatoes, do you know anything of the _Early Rose_? Let me
tell you. One hundred bushels were sold this spring, to one man, for
_eighty dollars_ a bushel! Since then, they have been selling by the
_pound_, at the increasing prices of one, two, and three dollars a
pound. It takes about three potatoes to make a pound.
Now for a story—true, for I had it from Timothy Titcomb’s lips. A
friend sent him this potato, with injunctions to give it the utmost
care. He planted it in his garden, and when it ripened, last summer,
not informed of its exceeding preciousness, he proceeded to eat. In a
reasonable time he consumed three barrels, which at the lowest price
were worth about seven hundred dollars!
I have a very nice plat of these potatoes, and should like to sell
them to you in advance. As an inducement, I offer mine at _fifty_
dollars a bushel! But this is confidential. I do not wish to be
overrun with purchasers, scrambling for a chance!
Do you not see that it is impossible for me, amid such incessant and
weighty cares, to compose an article? The air is white with
apple-blossoms; the trees are all singing; the steaming ground
beseeches me to grant it a portion of flower-seeds; by night the
whippoorwills, and by day the wood-thrush and mocking-bird, fill my
imagination with all sorts of fancies, and how can I write?