Evening star., 1925-04-18
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

After working in the back yard for
| several weeks, shining IL up for
| Spring, / have more respect for farm,
ers than l ever did before.
No wonder the great backbone OF
! the Republic has to get up at 8 or 4
| am. The wonder is how he manages
! to get his work all done by night
1t is amazing how much time a
small back yard demands. after q long
| Winter, before it can be said to be in
shape for the glad, new season.
To look at the yard, lying out there
in its proud square feet, one would
think it possible to clean it up in a
few hours. If not then, certainly in a
few days.
Several weeks. however, of intensive
| work still show much to be done in
the back yard. Gardening, like house.
work, is never finished. There is al.
ways something. to dc.
When one considers, then. the
farmer, with his acres and acres OF
land, his stock to feed and water, his
farm implements and machines to
keep in shape, his crops to cultivate
his harvests, the wonder is that the
man ever gets it done at ALL
Perhaps this is one of the biggest
Denents to be secured from a little
back yard, this renewed appreciation
does for you and me and all Of us.
Our city hats off to our country
cousin,
The love for growing things NAV
be dulled by city life in general. by
apartment life in particular, but ii
cannot be killed.
There is a Theory to the effect tha,
much OF our modern crime is due to
lack of contact with the soil. There
is something elemental. Something
soothing and calming about dirt, rain
and wind, grass, flowers, corn and
peas.
That man who never had a plo,
or ground of his own, although he
may never realize il, is suffering a
deprivation not only of soil but OF
those factors growing out of the soil
Deep in the brain cells of every
individual, no matter where or how
porn, is fixed a yearning for old
Mother Earth. He may be born in a
tenement, amid concrete streets and
brick buildings.
His daily life may never lead him
into the green fields. His highest con
ceptlon OF the beauties of nature NAV
be some building bound park. where
Mother Earth snatches a few square
rods of green amid an otherwise
sterile landscape.
Yet in the heart of that man the
call OF Spring still lives He has, ir
a sense, been cheated Of one of his
birthrights, and something in him tells
him, although vaguely, that all is
not so well with him as it other
wise might have been.
He may loaf on the street corner
and before his fellows sneer at the
country jake" and the hay sticking
out of his boottops, but in the inner
recesses of his soul fingers still the
urge that man got centuries and
centuries ago. the craving for contact
with the earth
This is the land craving in every
one of us. Often il is q desire we do
not realize we possess. 1t is, in short,
one OF the so-called Suppressed de
sires" of which we hear so much.
Commonly that phrase Is applied
in other directions, but there is
no good reason for not applying IL
to matters agricultural. The craving
for earth and flowers is an elemental
one. too, and is with us to the end
when we go back to the earth at last
x = x
The man who has not access to bit
OF ground OF his own resents It, al.
though he perhaps may never realize
just what Is the matter with him. In