The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-21
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

NAAN SAhC dEGSl Slc lSs SLc StdE Is
 with the sober browns and gradually works up to the flaming reds.
 I am running from one part of the state to the other and spending many
 hours out under the blue of Gods heav-
 ems. and getting my mind washed clean of the fog which settles down on a fel-
 low who sits all day shut up in a room
 and tied to a desk.
 Many of the corn fields are golden and some farmers still cling to the old GUS tom of pulling fodder. I like to see the
 men at work gathering the corn and piling it up for the wagons to come along and get. l. have been surprised to find some fields of corn still having a healthy greeI look.
 A wheat field in which the golden grain is being windswept until it un- Gulates like a restless ocean is one of the most artistic bits of realistic paint ing done by Dame Nature and always
 makes me sorry that my state plants so l need but because l miss the pleasure of filling my eyes with the picture of countless ceres devoted to the staff Of fife.
 1 l remember cnce being in the home of youns lady who had spent several years at great eastern college to find | # +t1of cta oP al ac graceful a plant as grew on the breast of Mother Earth, and how in her first enthusiasm ever the discovery planted the front yard in it, much to the disgust Of her Eeiehbors who were surfeited at the sight of it growing all around them. l I once had it put up to me to decide which was growing in pot. It was about a foot high. The lady was a little hazy as to how she got it as sshe had | bought quite a collection of shrubs, order l ing them from different greenhouses. 1t | just so happened on account of being reared in south Alabama that was able To pronounce it an umbrella china and to warn her that she would have a time re-rot;ing it, and that the best thing to do was to set it out in the yard ! Have you ever been ab.e to decide
 which IS the lovelier sight, an orange or a peach orchard when both are in fruit? If you have settled it to your own satisfaction, then let me ask which 1 is the Iretticr in bloom When l am in Florida I say it's the orange groves, but when l am in Alabama I award my decision to the peach orchard.
 l I always like to read and hear about the worship of the Japanese for the celebrations given in honor ef the sea- son in which the bud bursts into flow | er like the name "flowery kingdom just as I like to hear Florida referred to as "the land of flowers
 1 But some one rises to call attention to the beauty of an apple orchard, confess that I have never gotten over my boyhood desire to stop under every l LIee lducl Willl n ut iOAiS Oii0u6h " pluck enough to fill my pockets. I have seen some fine orchards this fall in some of the northern counties and on Sand mountain.
 1 Now I am not going to forget the per simmon trees. It seems to me that this year they are unusually ladened. The sight of persimmon tree just sets my | fancics roaming and I am boy again. and I can hear the barking of the dogs and I can see "ole Mir Possum sitting | on a limb I remember we'll the first ! time I ever had the honor to be selected to skin up tree to shake him out. | Talking about pretty sights where would you go to find anything finer than 1 field of cotton? It has an attractive | ness all it's own. I used to wonder at our northern visitors who came south to our expositions and bought cotton bols to take back home for both curi- osities and ornamental purposes. know of no more home-like scene than to see the cotton pickers at work.
 | The other day while riding along saw watermelon patch. The deep green melons set here and there in field Of brown looked quite out of place. They 4 seemed to be only about half large enough to ripen before frost and re- minded me of how when was boy we used to pack away 8 few of them in the i cellar to try and have one at Christmas time.
 And the fields of golden pumpkin
 Somehow we have never given the yellow melon it's due in the south. . We have never bowed down and worshipped it as is done in the east. We do not make a ceremony of eating pumpkin pie as they do in Yankee land. I used to go down OF a side street in New York in the
 fall just to see the great piles of pump
 kins. They say it made the New Eng
 flanders feel at home in the great city
 as nothing else could do.
 Sure they have melons in Wall street. It's the most beloved fruit of every
 broker, promoter and corporation head.
 Melon cutting day is a great day with them, but take it from me, l had rather live close to where bountifM naturs
 causes the luscious cantaloupe, the red
 hearted watermelon, and the golden life housed in and get my slice in the form of dividend instead of having the pleasure of biting into it with my