Evening star., 1924-11-03
THIS AND THAT
BY c. E. TRACEWELL

Center Market, like good many
people, is more interesting on the
outside than on the inside. This is
no reflection on the comely interior
of the market, with its neat stands,
white-coated market men, and coun-
ters of viands.
1t is on the outside Of the market,
however. that the visitor comes into
close contact with the men and
women of the soil who make the
entire market possible. These are
the folk who grow the giant radishes
and the succulent carrots, the great
pumpkins and the beets, and the
celery and the spinach and all the
other edibles we take into our homes.
Here on the south front of the
building, and along Louisiana avenue,
between Tenth and Eleventh streets,
We find the sturdy country people,
both white and black, who have got
ten out Of their distant beds at am.
today, in order to bring us our
vegetables.
The whole area lying just north of
the National Museum belongs to
Center Market. There in the museum
repose, in a sort of embalmed state,
many wonders from all parts of the
world. Here. in the market area, lie
huge quantities of good things to eat,
fresh and unspoiled from the very
lap of nature.
1t is not too much to say that a
visit to this great market is as near
as We will ever get to the Garden
of Eden. For the Garden of Eden,
as all men know, was lost many
years ago, but the Power that made
IT to bloom and to grow still works
His wonders in the humblest truck
n -1,r,
Here, in the presence of these great
mounds of green. yellow, red and
other colored products of the soil, we
are down to the elementals.
Bless our soul, If there isn't the
very apple the serpent gave to Eve.
AT least, the original apple of Eden
could have been no prettier, than
those in that great pile there, Civ
Ing back the bushes of the mother
OF US all to this gray October sky.
X * X
Under these long umbrella sheds,
stretching along Louisiana avenue
between Tenth and Eleventh streets,
just south of where the tower of the
Post Office Department looms, the
corner grocers of Washington buy
what they later sell to you.
How fresh and clean everything
looks. Here there are no small piles
Of anything, but great heaps of prod
uce-earrots by the bushel, their
coper-red making a pretty sight
cabbages by the half ton, with curly
fresh green leaves; pumpkins by the
score, all ready for HalloweA; fine
looking sweet potatoes, regiments of
them, doomed to walk right down
into the valley of the four hundred
LOOK at those radishes, They are
foot long, If they are an inch. as
white as alabaster, or Il tiled bath,
such radisheS as one never dreamed
to see outside seed catalogue. Now
here before our eyes they have come
true. One wonders who buys them.
Never in all my life have l seen a
radish like that on plate.
Here is man with rows on rows
of bottles of cider surrounded with
the apples from which the drink was
pressed. Wagons back up, while the
men in charge of the exhibits stand
and walk around. with the unconcern
of those who work with Nature
After all, no men so touch bottom
with life as do the farmers, the truck
growers, the flower culturists, all
those who grow living things from
the soil that the body and souls of
men may be fed.
Wherever you see a farmer you
see a man who is not as other men.
/ do not mean any of the bunk about
being the back bone of the repub-
lic," although the farmer undoubted- :
ly is that. to say nothing of being
the ribs, too.
A man who has faced Nature at .
a m, dug in the ground all day long,