Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-05-02

Estey alley jewellers are getting
"housemaid's knee" working in the
garden.
Prolonged STOPPING, required in
planting. TRANSFORMING, trimming and
other garden work, is rather trying on
knees not used to the exercise.
In the backyard the amateur gar
dener faces the following problem:
Whether it is better TO squat down,
and so get so stiff he can scarcely
arise, or to bend over, and become
dizzy from too much blood to the head.
If he adopts the former procedure
the gardener soon begins to suffer from
a very modern, yet age-old, equivalent
for the so-called "housemaids knee"
supposed to afflict those doing mental
work.
Ones trusty old kneecaps. not being
accustomed to prolonged squatting get
stiff, the skin over them stretched, the
final upshot of the matter being that
once down the sufferer feels inclined
TO stay there.
Some of our rawest amateurs are so
stiff in the knees that they have to
pull themselves up with the aid of the
fence. When this stage of the malady
is reached, generally they try the sec
ond method.
Bending over gracefully from the
waist seems a rather neat solution of
the dilemma for about five minutes.
After that. in the ajority of cases,
the rush of blood to the head generally
drives them back to squatting as the
lesser of two evils.
Persistence in STOPPING, of course,
viii lead to q cure. Realizing there is
to be relief in no other way, the ten
dons and ligaments of the knees begin
to loosen up, so that ultimately one is
able to squat down in the garden for
hours at time, if necessary.
+ x X
Sitting on a soap box, however, is an
easy way out of the difficulty.
Usually it is not until the gardener
gets his knees into such a condition
that he can scarcely walk that he
thinks of the soap box.
What would the world do without
the soap box?
Leaving out of consideration its prac-
tical utility as a shipping case for
bars of wholesome, necessary fat, let
US consider the place of the soap box
in the universe.
Its position as a public rostrum is
too well known to need much com
ment. THE soap-box orator" is al
most as famous as any other kind, and
= N'ASAeiA oSto iAA'' ANii SAAt'A VI pun
licity.
In the home the humble soap box
masquerades as many things. Now
draped in a white-and blue luncheon
tablecloth ii does duty as a fern stand.
Sometimes a handy man transforms
it into a bookcase. and yet again 1t
shines in the more humble roll of
shoe-shining stand.
Here. in the open air. it becomes a
stool for the weary gardener!
< K
Planting gladiolus bulbs in a row re-
quires much STOPPING. These queer
articles, dry and brown, in several
months will bloom into stately spikes
of pink. yellow and purple flowers,
their lanceolate foliage vying with the
beauty of the blooms.
We dig a hole for this bulb, named
after Marshal Foch. and plant it four
times its own depth. taking care to set
ii right-end up. Careless planters who
put in the "glads" upsidedown often
wonder why they do no good. AS If
any one could function standing on
his head, kicking his heels into the air.
The gladioluS fans" constitute, per-
haps, the most rabid group of any
flower culturists. Get interested in
this particular flower, one is very like