Both my ears have good appetites--for garden lore.
About half a mile from me, down Mill River, stands the factory of a
prized friend who more than any other man helps by personal daily care
to promote Northampton's "People's Institute," of whose home-garden work
I have much to say in the chapters that follow this one. For forty years
or more this factory has been known far and wide as the "Hoe Shop"
because it makes shovels. It has never made hoes. It uses water-power,
and the beautiful mill-pond behind its high dam keeps the river full
back to the rapids just above my own acre. In winter this is the
favorite skating-pond of the town and of Smith College. In the greener
seasons of college terms the girls constantly pass upstream and down in
their pretty rowboats and canoes, making a charming effect as seen from
my lawn's rear edge at the head of the pine and oak shaded ravine whose
fish-pools are gay by turns with elder, wild sunflower, sumach, iris,
water-lilies, and forget-me-not.
[Illustration: "The beautiful mill-pond behind its high dam keeps the
river full back to the rapids just above My Own Acre."
This is the "Hoe Shop." The tower was ruined by fire many years ago, and
because of its unsafety is being taken down at the present writing.]
This ravine, the middle one of the grove's three, is about a hundred
feet wide.
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