"I was goin' to quit soon as I ketched Potts's dog. He'd a bin
splendid to bury out yer with the others. Lemme tell you how it is:
The best thing to make grape-vines grow is dogs; bury 'em right down
among the roots. Some people prefer grandmothers and their other
relations. But gimme dogs and cats. Soon as I seen them vines of yourn
I said to myself, Them vines wants a few dogs, and I concluded to
put in the first day rakin' in all I could find. I'm goin' out again
to-morrow, down the other road."

But he didn't. Mr. Butterwick discharged him that night. He was too
enthusiastic for a gardener, and Mr. Butterwick thought that life
might open out to him a brighter and more beautiful vista in some
other capacity.

Subsequently, Mr. Butterwick concluded to attend to his garden
himself, and early in the spring he received from the Congressman of
our district a choice lot of assorted seeds brought from California
by the Agricultural Department. There were more than he wanted, so he
gave a quantity of sugar-beet and onion seeds to Mr. Potts, and
some turnip and radish seeds to Colonel Coffin; then he planted the
remainder, consisting of turnip, cabbage, celery and beet seeds, in
his own garden.

When the plants began to come up, he thought they looked kind of
queer, but he waited until they grew larger, and then, as he felt
certain something was wrong, he sent for a professional gardener to
make an examination.

"Mr. Hoops," he said, "cast your eye over those turnips and tell me