Perhaps, after all, it is not what you get out of a garden, but what you put into it, that is the most remunerative.What is a man? Aquestion frequently asked, and never, so far as I know, satisfactorily answered.He commonly spends his seventy years, if so many are given him, in getting ready to enjoy himself.How many hours, how many minutes, does one get of that pure content which is happiness? I do not mean laziness, which is always discontent; but that serene enjoyment, in which all the natural senses have easy play, and the unnatural ones have a holiday.There is probably nothing that has such a tranquilizing effect, and leads into such content as gardening.By gardening, I do not mean that insane desire to raise vegetables which some have; but the philosophical occupation of contact with the earth, and companionship with gently growing things and patient processes; that exercise which soothes the spirit, and develops the deltoid muscles.
In half an hour I can hoe myself right away from this world, as we commonly see it, into a large place, where there are no obstacles.
What an occupation it is for thought! The mind broods like a hen on eggs.The trouble is, that you are not thinking about anything, but are really vegetating like the plants around you.I begin to know what the joy of the grape-vine is in running up the trellis, which is similar to that of the squirrel in running up a tree.We all have something in our nature that requires contact with the earth.In the solitude of garden-labor, one gets into a sort of communion with the vegetable life, which makes the old mythology possible.For instance, I can believe that the dryads are plenty this summer: my garden is like an ash-heap.Almost all the moisture it has had in weeks has been the sweat of honest industry.
The pleasure of gardening in these days, when the thermometer is at ninety, is one that I fear I shall not be able to make intelligible to my readers, many of whom do not appreciate the delight of soaking in the sunshine.I suppose that the sun, going through a man, as it will on such a day, takes out of him rheumatism, consumption, and every other disease, except sudden death--from sun-stroke.But, aside from this, there is an odor from the evergreens, the hedges, the various plants and vines, that is only expressed and set afloat at a high temperature, which is delicious; and, hot as it may be, a little breeze will come at intervals, which can be heard in the treetops, and which is an unobtrusive benediction.I hear a quail or two whistling in the ravine; and there is a good deal of fragmentary conversation going on among the birds, even on the warmest days.The companionship of Calvin, also, counts for a good deal.He usually attends me, unless I work too long in one place; sitting down on the turf, displaying the ermine of his breast, and watching my movements with great intelligence.He has a feline and genuine love for the beauties of Nature, and will establish himself where there is a good view, and look on it for hours.He always accompanies us when we go to gather the vegetables, seeming to be desirous to know what we are to have for dinner.He is a connoisseur in the garden; being fond of almost all the vegetables, except the cucumber,--a dietetic hint to man.I believe it is also said that the pig will not eat tobacco.
These are important facts.It is singular, however, that those who hold up the pigs as models to us never hold us up as models to the pigs.