a poor, half-furnished house; he who obtains from his garden only what
he can eat gathers but a meagre crop. If I find something besides
berries on my vines, I shall pick it if so inclined. The scientific
treatise, or precise manual, may break up the well-rooted friendship
of plants, and compel them to take leave of each other, after the
arbitrary fashion of methodical minds, but I must talk about them very
much as nature has taught me, since, in respect to out-of-door life,
my education was acquired almost wholly in the old-fashioned way at
the venerable "dame's school." Nay more, I claim that I have warrant
to gather from my horticultural texts more than can be sent to the
dining table or commission merchant. Such a matter-of-fact plant as
the currant makes some attempt to embroider its humble life with
ornament, and in April the bees will prove to you that honey may be
gathered even from a gooseberry bush. Indeed, gooseberries are like
some ladies that we all know. In their young and blossoming days they
are sweet and pink-hued, and then they grow acid, pale, and hard; but
in the ripening experience of later life they become sweet again and
tender. Before they drop from their places the bees come back for
honey, and find it.

In brief, I propose to take the reader on a quiet and extended ramble
among the small fruits. It is much the same as if I said, "Let us go
a-strawberrying together," and we talked as we went over hill and
through dale in a style somewhat in harmony with our wanderings. Very
many, no doubt, will glance at these introductory words, and decline
to go with me, correctly feeling that they can find better company.
Other busy, practical souls will prefer a more compact,
straightforward treatise, that is like a lesson in a class-room,
rather than a stroll in the fields, or a tour among the fruit farms,
and while sorry to lose their company, I have no occasion to find