Page:Letters of Life.djvu/125

Rh of flour of sulphur, with a sufficient quantity of soft water. As an additional tonic the earth was opened in a circle around each tree to the depth of two inches, and a prescription of compost, mingled with two quarts of wood-ashes, one quart of salt, and the same quantity of pulverized plaster added, to quicken their appetite, and the whole neatly raked over. The recipients repaid these attentions by their healthful condition. Since almost every person likes good fruit, and does not object to a large quantity, I make no apology for mentioning to you, dear friend, the old-fashioned modes by which those results were promoted.

Busy and merry was the autumnal ingathering from our small domain. The vegetables accepted a winter shelter in the spacious cellar, where each genus was arranged in due order; and the savoy cabbage, standing erect in its bed of sand, might have pleased a Dutch burgomaster by its unfading greenness. Apples were to be cut and dried for tarts, pears and peaches for confections and pastry, and boiled sweet corn exposed to the sun for the dish of succotash, whose richness was learned from the poor Indians. Sage, and the red heads of thyme, and the rough leaves of the burdock, were to be saved for the domestic pharmacopeia; tansy and peppermint for distillation, as the fragrant damask-rose had already been, and the luxuriant hop, for beer, which sometimes burst the bottles with its luscious effervescence. The finest apples were to be