that appeals to a vast sense of something; something that it will be
right to get up lotteries and that sort of thing for. I suggest a
festival for the benefit of my garden; and this seems feasible. In
order to make everything pass off pleasantly, invited guests will
bring or send their own strawberries and cream, which I shall be
happy to sell to them at a slight advance. There are a great many
improvements which the garden needs; among them a sounding-board, so
that the neighbors' children can hear when I tell them to get a
little farther off from the currant-bushes. I should also like a
selection from the ten commandments, in big letters, posted up
conspicuously, and a few traps, that will detain, but not maim, for
the benefit of those who cannot read. But what is most important is,
that the ladies should crochet nets to cover over the strawberries.
A good-sized, well-managed festival ought to produce nets enough to
cover my entire beds; and I can think of no other method of
preserving the berries from the birds next year. I wonder how many
strawberries it would need for a festival "and whether they would
cost more than the nets.

I am more and more impressed, as the summer goes on, with the
inequality of man's fight with Nature; especially in a civilized
state. In savagery, it does not much matter; for one does not take a
square hold, and put out his strength, but rather accommodates
himself to the situation, and takes what he can get, without raising
any dust, or putting himself into everlasting opposition. But the
minute he begins to clear a spot larger than he needs to sleep in for
a night, and to try to have his own way in the least, Nature is at
once up, and vigilant, and contests him at every step with all her
ingenuity and unwearied vigor. This talk of subduing Nature is
pretty much nonsense. I do not intend to surrender in the midst of