I herewith acknowledge the receipt of two bags of cane-seed from the Agricultural Department.

Mr. Le Duc is always thinking of me and evidently knew that I was yearning for some cane-seed. It will grow luxuriantly here on the spinal column of the American continent where winter lingers in the lap of spring till after the Fourth of July.

William says that this breed of sugar-cane "originated in Minnesota, and is claimed to have been the result of accidental hybridization."

I shall not allow anything of this kind myself if I can by the most tireless watchfulness avoid it. Accidental hybridization is what is demoralizing the sugar-cane of the whole country.

I shall plant this seed in drills two feet apart, mulching with rich top-dressing of retired gum boots and dead cats. I will then wait till the plant has germinated and appears above the surface, when I shall remove the boots and dead cats and rub the plants with a Turkish towel to promote a healthy circulation.

Then next fall while others who have sneered at me and called me a horny-handed buckwheater from the rural districts, are running up heavy bills for groceries, I will go out into my molasses orchard and pick a milk pan full of granulated sugar from my trees, or shell out enough maple sugar for breakfast at a slight cost and with the blessed consciousness that I did it all myself.

William is going to send me some more seeds that he thinks will do well in this tropical climate. If he could send me something that would be more hardy, like the early Swedish lemon-squeezer, or the mammoth custard-pie plant, or the Northern Spy cucumber tree, my reports to the department would be more cheerful than they are, but where plants have to wear their heavy California underclothes all through August they get discouraged and prefer to bloom in the sweet fields of Eden.

Last year I tried the hot-bed process, but it was not a signal success. This summer I shall use the hot-bed as an ice cream freezer. It wanted to act in that capacity last summer, but I had a freezer that did very well, so I foolishly used the hot-bed to assist the plants, although I know of several days in midsummer when my cabbage-plants had to get out of that hot-bed and run up and down the garden walk to keep their feet from freezing.