Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-02
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES =. TRACEEELL.

Garden tasks are pleasant partly be-
cause they are familiar.
In the same way that a motorist gets
used to the feel of the wheel and finds
| content in The touch, so the gardener
becomes familiar with trowel and spade.
The seasonal tasks become happy
! ones because he has done them so often.
Digging, mulching. transplanting are
tho ever new chapters of an old story.
The ordinary talk of gardeners is
trite. stale 1t is old stuff" of the
! worst variety. but on no other plane
/ could it be such happy conversation.
Perhaps you have been bored at che
! talk of two home owners. as you rode
home In street car or bus in front OF
them.
They went over and over the same
ground. gave the sge-old advice about
this flower and that one. talked the
same old talk about fertilizers.
If you we're an amateur gardener
yourself. however, you we're entertained
by their conversation. for gardening is
onc Of the few occupations where "old
stuff" is perpetually new stuff.
- X
Most of us try so hard-and so
pathetically-to be up-to-date.
To be smart" is tho ambition OF
women, to be poppy" the one wish of
men.
Somehow the word modern" has
taken on such connotations of great
ness that we all have placed undue
stock in the Meeting moment, which
must give way instantly to a new mo-
ment, and so on for time infinite.
In the last analysis, there Is no such
thing as this "modernity" upon which
we pride ourselves, but we go right
ahead talking and pridinS ourselves on
it as If 1t were the only quality In the
world worth while
The happy thing about gardening is
that 1t makes a man forget this fair
for the new, thu popular. the smart"
and puts him once again in touch with
the ancient days, wherein the work of
the hands and the thoughts of the
heart are everlasting. depending not
upon popular favor for their place but
rather upon such inherent traits and
characteristics, as seem very part of
them.
Gardening Is the greatest solace in
the world to the man or woman kept
perpetually unrestful by the incessant
bombarding from "go-getters," high
pressure salesman. and the thousands
and thousands of young parsons who
somehow have got the idea that only
health and youth count.
y
The work of the garden Is much the
same today as 1t was thousands of
years ago For all Of the lore OF "scien-
tif1c agriculture" as helpful and fine as
1t is. in its way. the basic acts Of gar
dening remain exactly the same through
the centuries.
Science splits the seed forty ways to
Sunday, and labels each part, but when
the splitting and the marking are over
not one OF them can tell the why or
the how of the seed.
The seed remains Just as much Of q
mystery as ever. And the various gar
den operations and results still move
the mind and heart of man TO wonder
and such reverence as he stills keeps
with him.
Only recently we were reading a new
book, written by one OF Americas keen
est young educators Whatever one may
or may not think of the book itself, no
one can help admiring the mind of the
writer.
One puts that book down with some
thing akin to awe that one man 40
years old could know so much. There
is scarcely point Of his opponents
which he has not thought of and an
swered well. A phrase which Is a
favorite of his Is thoughtful persons"