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. After all, I spared too many. That is
the great danger everywhere in this world (it may not be in the
next): things are too thick; we lose all in grasping for too much.
The Scotch say, that no man ought to thin out his own turnips,
because he will not sacrifice enough to leave room for the remainder
to grow: he should get his neighbor, who does not care for the
plants, to do it. But this is mere talk, and aside from the point:
if there is anything I desire to avoid in these agricultural papers,
it is digression. I did think that putting in these turnips so late
in the season, when general activity has ceased, and in a remote part
of the garden, they would pass unnoticed. But Nature never even
winks, as I can see. The tender blades were scarcely out of the
ground when she sent a small black fly, which seemed to have been
born and held in reserve for this purpose,--to cut the leaves. They
speedily made lace-work of the whole bed. Thus everything appears to
have its special enemy,--except, perhaps, p----y: nothing ever
troubles that.

Did the Concord Grape ever come to more luscious perfection than this
year? or yield so abundantly? The golden sunshine has passed into
them, and distended their purple skins almost to bursting. Such