previously, there did not appear to be a market for garden produce in Flushing, but are given as the amount I should have had to pay if I had bought the various articles at retail prices. This is clearly proper; for, if we had wanted them to eat, had purchased them at the stalls, and had paid the current charges, there would have been just so much additional outlay; that we did not eat them is no answer, for we could have done so had we wished.

This exhibit was certainly entirely satisfactory; the account had steadily improved, and bade fair soon to show a large income. I have even gone so far as to leave out of question rent saved, dissipation at Saratoga avoided, health improved, digestion invigorated, pure air enjoyed, and a thousand other matters for which we pay so dearly; I merely take the hard, dry figures the positive profit and loss in dollars and cents-and they give a clear net profit of nearly eight hundred dollars. Nothing could be asked more promising than this; if it went on improving at this rate, there was no telling where it would stop. Farming had evidently proved itself a source of vast wealth. We were nowhere near the limit of the productiveness of my five acres, and, with additional attention, we might reasonably anticipate increased returns. The result was so encouraging, the life at

Flushing so charming, the access to the city so easy, that I resolved to move there permanently. There was much to be done besides sleigh-riding and skating, even in the winter months; roots had to be stored from frost, bulbs required attention, potatoes and turnips demanded care, chicken-coops had to be built, forcing-frames dug, and a green-house erected. Taking all these things into consideration, I resolved to abandon the city, and, in spite of frozen ground, deep snows, piercing winds, and muddy roads, to devote myself to agricultural pursuits.

IN

CHAPTER XVIII.

PREPARATIONS FOR REMOVAL.

N the last chapter I have stated that so charming did the country seem to me, so pure its pleasures, and profitable its cultivation, that I resolved to remove there permanently, and give up entirely the less lucrative, if more distinguished, pursuit of the law. A most essential preparation for this change was the necessity of cultivating and increasing the present stock of plants-the tender and fragile things requiring winter protection-which the abundance of the last year had left me. My stock was not, perhaps, what finished gardeners would call choice; they were not those out-of-the-way foreign productions which only rejoice in one name, and that a polysyllabic Latin one; but, although they were equally entitled to a scientific appellation, they were generally known under common ones. I had an abundance of carnations, which I had sometimes referred to as varieties of Dianthus caryophyllus when my uneducated city visitors called to see me. There was quite a stock of scarlet geranium; for, al

though I had ordered from the florist at Flushing a dozen different colors, he had determined that one kind would answer my purposes. There were a few of the exquisite bellis perennis Hortensis, more generally known as daisies. But of all my treasures, the most numerous of any one kind was a great variety of verbenas, which I had raised from seed, and which had sported into every variety of color, except -as Weeville once said when he was in an envious mood-a handsome one; but tastes differ.

These valuable plants must be protected during the winter, and preparations had to be made to insure their being turned into the beds the ensuing spring in healthy condition. To this end it was necessary to add to the books of reference. To "Breck's Book of Flowers," and Rand's "Work on the Garden," which I already possessed, I added Beust's "Flower Garden Directory;" Leuchar's "How to Build Hot-houses;" Todd's "Young Farmer's Manual;" Fuller's "Small Fruit Culturist;" Warder's "American Pomology;" Dr. Chase's "Recipes, or Information for Every Body;" Mead's "American Grape Culture," besides a number of others equally learned and abstruse, in addition to subscribing for the American Agriculturist, I put my name down for the Farmer's Friend, and the American Farm

er, as well as the London Field, which always contained a valuable article on "Work for the Week," that gave me a number of important suggestions. The thorough study of these for the space of a month made me perfectly acquainted with the subject in hand; they not only told me all about green-houses and window-culture, but gave me valuable hints about propagating vines, pruning trees, increasing and improving manure, building concrete walls, skinning sheep, sawing logs, chopping down trees, and concerning a vast number of other subjects, all of which information might prove exceedingly useful some day or other if my farming enterprises proceeded.

By the aid of these works it was ascertained that plants could be grown advantageously in a room of an ordinary dwelling-house, provided the proper care was exercised. This was quite satisfactory, as, unfortunately, I had no other place than the fourthstory room of my house in the city to devote to my new protégés. Under the published directions, which I studied over till I had them by heart, a room with a southerly exposure was selected, a staging was erected in front of the windows, and the gas was so secured that no thoughtless person could turn it on and poison the air of the extemporized green-house.