When I discovered one morning that my young sunflowers and my tomato vines had been cut down during the night by some lawless depredator I was mightily incensed. I had not supposed that there was anybody so mean as to commit such a wanton destruction. The value of the property destroyed was not large; I had paid but five cents apiece for the twenty tomato vines, and the young sunflowers were a present from Fadda Pierce. The intrinsic value of these things was so small as to cut no figure in my mind, but having watched the graceful creatures wax large and comely from mere sprouts it was quite natural that I should have a strong sentimental attachment for them. For the fruit of the tomato vine I care nothing, but I had with much satisfaction pictured the enjoyment which Alice and the children would derive from the luscious tomatoes which I flattered myself were to ripen upon our own vines under the genial August sun. Moreover, I had already made up a list of the names of city friends to whom I intended to send handsome specimens of these first fruits of my experiments in farming; the Reillys, the Lynches, the Chapins, the Maxwells, the Scotts, the Fayes, the Deweys, the Morrises, the Millards, the Larneds, the Fletchers, the Ways--these and other fortunate cronies were to be made recipients of my bounty in case the fruit held out. I will say nothing of the pleasing future I depicted for the sunflowers; the sunflower is a particular favorite of mine, presumably because it is one of the very few flowers I am capable of identifying. My impulse, when beholding the tomato vines and sunflowers cut down in the innocence of youth, was to determine not to pursue gardening further. To this mood succeeded a fit of anger, and I was so outraged by the destruction I beheld that I would cheerfully have given any sum of money I could have borrowed of my neighbors for information leading to the apprehension of the perpetrator of this brutal wrong. As it was, I wrote out an offer of five dollars reward upon a sheet of letter paper and nailed it with four large wire nails to a maple tree in front of the place, where all passers-by could see and read it. Later in the day I went to tell Fadda Pierce of the trouble which had befallen me, and he consoled me with the assurance that the work of destruction had been wrought--not by a human being, as I had surmised, but by cutworms, a kind of reptile that plies its nefarious trade between two days for no other apparent purpose than that of making gentlemen farmers like myself miserable.