Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-08-21
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES Z. TRACEWELL.

Often lack Of rain will have precisely
similar an effect on grass turning a
Soggy, thin Sward into q nice approx
nation to a carpet Of green. These
matters ADJUST themselves In nature,
and often do it exactly to the salts
faction of the critical faculties in man,
that only critic of all Gods creations.
Did you ever stop to think that dog
or cat never criticizes? Horses and
cows take life as 1t comes, and look
happy or miserable as they are treated,
each in kind, but in no case do they
appear to resent anything, or to be cast
ing reflections upon man, or wondering
to themselves why he does one thing
or why he does not do another. Now
this Is good, and mankind might profit
some from the animals, If 1t had q
mind to, but 1t hasn't and never has
had, so perhaps that ends the matter.
Facts are stubborn things, and as long
as man is man he will regard, he viii
examine, he will be for q thing or
against thing, and often he will not
know why, but will be solidly for or as
determinedly against. This is the SILL
ness Of man, that, with all his critical
faculty, often he can give no good rea-
son at all why he Is for or against.
other specimens of his own kind he
reaches his ultimate Stiffness Here most
often he finds that the man he lin
stinctively" hates turns out to be his
best friend, whereas the fellow he
found charming at first In the end be-
comes bore or worse.
y X y
Correspondents keep calling us I'D
over the telephone, and asking whether
they should plant grass seed now.
whether they should begin to trim
shrubs and when to transplant trees.
We invariably suggest that they wait
awhile, there Is no great hurry. that
time, the best doctor, may do surpris-
ing things in the night, or over the
passage of nights.
Consider that old tree which needs
pruning, where several branches have
been broken, and are hanging down.
The leaves are withered, the branch Is
unsightly.
Well, do not become too excited about
| 1t, the next good blow probably will
send 1t to the ground. And then, If
the resulting wound is not too large a
one, merctful time will heal the breach,
or, rather, will help the tree to do it,
and you will be saved the labor and
danger of climbing on a ladder, an
exercise to which you are not accus-
! toned.
Consider those items in the paper,
81 years old, of 1872 Melrose terrace,
while picking cherries in his yard fell
| from the ladder and broke both legs;
| how Timothy Higgenbottom, Is, fell
| from q ladder and broke leg while
| picking cherries at his grandfather
place; how old Hiram Turnipseed at
tempted to catch swarm of bees, and
was knocked off his ladder by the irate
insects, but suffered only a broken arm.
These items should make a house
holder cautious. If climbing ladders
has not been part Of your daily work,
| think twice before climbing ladders
| Think three times, indeed, before climb
ing cherry trees. There must be some
thing slippery about cherry trees, II one
may Judge from the number of times
they figure In the country accident news.
| If one must climb trees, no doubt it
would be better to pick something be-
sides cherry.
Time cures everything" goes the old
maxim, and there Is much wisdom in it,
especially when applied to the things
Of the garden. A policy Of do-nothing
is not so much advocated, as a wise
waiting, a letting of Mother Nature do
it. She has been at it a long time,
and her survival Of the fittest is ruth
less, but efficient. If she tolerates
crowds, as she does, it Is because she
likes crowds, getting what she wants
out of them. in the last analysis. She
is not afraid of numbers, after all, but
chooses and selects, selects and chooses,
out of her infinite stores. Nor does she
mind waste. Her gardens are always
overgrown, and they have their charm.