The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-05-15
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS
"Spaditis.'


 ing the place of golf here in Birming- l ham,
 hope to prove by the Bible that the use of the spade is scriptural, and by Shakespeare that he who digs with spade also bears arms.
 
 Many leading patriotic citizens who | used to hle themselves to the Country club are now using spade instead of golf stick, and having the time of their lives.
 My sympathy goes out to the tender | office men who are inoculated with the germ "spaditis," for I know from exper- fence 1t means broken back, or at least one that feels as if it was out of joint.
  Mrs. Mathis started the garden move- ment, and I aided and abetted her to the extent of my ability until today we can say of Birmingham what Herodotus said of a country he visited, "The dis | trict is little less than one continuous garden"
 | The Birmingham men are quite differ- ent from Rider Haggard's account of 1 some of the Africans he met in his jour neys, for, said he: You can never get your Zulu to take much interest in gar dening."
 | Some men of my acquaintance have | heretofore boasted that they were law yers, editors, doctors, bankers, preachers, | etc. Now they want to be known as gardeners. I heard John Frye at | luncheon boasting about his potato crop, and Ned Brace came to the office 1 glorying in a beautiful bunch of aspara- gus out of his garden
 
 | Ever since Mother Eve ate the forbidden ! apple and Adam was driven out of the l garden, the spade has been the badge | of the gardener, but never before in the 1 history of this city have so many busi- ness men taken up digging as side line. | love for digging in the soil comes down to us through the centuries. If you have never dug any, get you spade and 1t wont be long before you 1 will get a good case of "spaditis" 1 I've been greatly surprised how my | neighbors have taken to gardening. Men who are now 60 years old are at it early and late. Some were golf fiends and, de- 1 spite the fact that the links are at their very doors, they now get their pleasure out of the ground.
 | And so all around me are digging men 1 who have left the worries of office, | bank store, factory, or shop to get out l under Gods blue heavens to labor in the open air and bright sunshine. It's the best tonic for tired mind the surest 1 cure for overtaxed nerves l | Get close to nature. It's the best way 1 to forget the cares and perplexities and 1 gather new strength and courage to face the morrow. It's conducive both to joy ous living and longevity. There is a charm in planting, hoeing 1 spadng, watering. There is pleasure in store to be gotten from watching the | growth and development of the plants. It's not only the market value of the 1 vegetables, but the freshness and the 1 fact that they came out of one's own l garden makes them taste all the better | No wonder gardeners get chummy Every one knows there is nothing in the world that makes neighbors become 1 friends more quickly than the discovery that each loves a garden Chickens, of course, are barred). poet says: l "One seed for another make an exchange With fellowy neighborhood seemeth not strange"
 The exchange of ideas, plants and plans is the delight of garden neighbors. Adam was named .The Grand Old Gar dener' by Tennyson. Since the story of the Garden of Eden, there have como down to us many accounts of famous gar dens. Only recently at one of the liter ary clubs a member had to read a paper on the famous gardens or parks of France
 In classic myth, three daughters Of IIesperus were guardians of the golden apples which Juno, at her nuptials with Jupiter, received from Tena They were kept in the garden of Hesperides on an island beyond Mount Atlas in Africa.
 The most unique garden I know Of in history is the Campo Santo of Pisa, known as the Garden of the Dead'' Archbishop Ubaldo Q1SS-12O0) returned from Palestine with 53 ships laden with the sacred earth of Calvary. Giovanni Pesano. who was employed to enclose this sacred deposit, was five years in doing it. The name Campo Santo-Holy Ground. naturally given to earth from the Holy Land-was by degrees given to all Italian cemeteries
 As interesting as is the building, the collection of monuments and fragments of ancient sculpture in the corridors of the Campo Santo, and the frescoes from the Old Testament it's the glimpses through the doorways that remind all oi us that we must return sooner or later to Mother Earth to be buried in God Acre"
 It's the old lawyer habit that makes