The Champion of England peas were named after Tom Sayers, the great prize fighter. These peas do not need any pods on them. We have planted them for many years without pods on them. One great advantage of the Champion of England peas is that they spar for themselves. Tom Sayers got away with two quarts of them once, but he trusted too much to his own ability. You cannot handle the Champion of England without gloves. In selecting ground for them it is best to have the sun in their eyes. They can stand a good deal of rough weather, but have been known to yield to a knock-down blow. Peas should never be eaten with a knife, because they roll off. It is best to pour them into a funnel. Oats should not be planted wild. Still we have known oats sown wild to produce a larger crop than the tame oats. Many of them are sown by moonlight and some by gas-light, but it is sometimes worse for the man who raises them than for the oats themselves. The best place to sow oats is in doors by a nice fire, and with a little sprinkling of cold water. Whiskey is a destroyer of the crop, and although very good for harrowing in, induces a growth of weeds. In Scotland the oats are fed to men, and in England to horses; so that a famous Scotchman said that nowhere could such horses be found in the world as in England, and nowhere such men as in Scotland. This is the reason why, on the borders, inns are sometimes called oatells. Oats are very heating, and many a Scotchman who eats them is compelled to come up to the scratch. Thus arises also that famous expression “hot Scotch,” which refers to a Highlander who has had too many oats. They warm him up. Do not fail to raise sheep. The proportion should be three dogs to one sheep. They will make it lively for the sheep. When you go wool-gathering take your dinner with you, for you may get lost. Lambs are best cooked a lamb mode. Chinamen eat rice with mutton. Hence their knives and forks are called chop sticks. Thus a Chinaman will say, “Lamby hard to bleat.” Lambs are best when they begin to gamble--you bet--on the green. It is funny, but Lamb’s finest work was on pigs. Yet, _vice versa_, we have seen pigs getting in their best work on lamb and peas. WILLIAM TAPPAN THOMPSON. The subject of this sketch, although one of the oldest of American humorists, is comparatively unknown at the present time. William Tappan Thompson was born in the village of Ravenna, Portage county, Ohio, on the 31st day of August, 1812. He came from a good family, his father being a native of Virginia, and his mother the daughter of an Irish exile. At the age of twelve years young Thompson was an orphan, and was thrown upon his own resources in the city of Philadelphia. He entered the office of the Philadelphia Chronicle, where he remained for two years working as a printer’s apprentice.