Evening star., 1931-12-14
What the countryside needs is a good

What the countryside needs is a good
snow.
Nature has never been able to beat
her snow for putting a great deal of
water into the soil.
Even the hardest rains often will not
do 1t. The harder 1t rains the more
water runs off.
If it happens that the soil is baked,
almost all Of severe rainfall will sluice
away down sewers or into natural run
ways.
1t takes a good snow, foot or so
oeep, to really put much water into dry
ground, such as now prevails.
Those interested In things horticul-
tural realize that drought has existed
Tor at least four months, and that ma
lure has done very little to relieve the
situation
Th earth is dry all the way down.
Inc water table" as the underlying
moisture content Of the soil Is called,
mas never been replenished since the
drought Of 1890.
The prevailing shorter (and less pub
licized drought In reality is the same
ory spell broken by strange interlude
OF rainfall during the Spring and early
Summer.
In short, we are behind in wet
weather.
X X
Now. nothing will make up for 1t like
a good, deep snow.
Whether this Is advisable from an
economic standpoint has nothing to do
with 1t. Nature knows nothing of eco
nomlcS. To her, curious mother. a
starving man is no different from a
well fed one.
Nor does she seem to care much
whether her horticultural offspring fare
wen or III. Her rains and SHOWS are
not sent because of them, seemingly.
Nor are her droughts directed against
them. ''
There is no moral government of the
universe from the viewpoint of plants.
Grants have no viewpoint? Who saws
they haven'tO They know nothing
and are nothing except in relation to
the earth in which they live. Without
soii and moisture around their roots
tney tend to expire. but they must take
the soil as they find It, We. mobile
plants, must take life as it is, too but
we 90 great deal of protesting.
Perhaps the plant is fortunate, per-
maps 1t isn't; but. anyway, it takes life
as 1t comes. A tree Just stands there
in the earth. solidly rooted. and II the
wind blows 1t bends its branches and
waits Tor the wind to pass. Or the wind
blows its branches ana passes, as one
prefers.
Dry weather or wet weather, the
plant suffers or expands. 1t knows
nothing but it knows everything
Those who love the growing things in
the soil. whether trees or potatoes
, evergreens or orchids. believe that they
rejoice after some fashion in a wet dav
1t Is happiness to such people to sit
IN window and look out at the ward
bathed In mist. Remaining greens look
greener, tree bark is darker, soil colors
are richer. Dirt is not dirt now; it is
the life blood of this teeming yeee
! tation which clothes the world.
What an odd thought Of God plants
are, to be sure Even in the widest
creams OF imaginative writer's have not
appeared anything so fantastic as a
weeping willow tree. The young poet
| tried hard to put this idea into verse
and despite the dulling OF the poems
beauty b. repetition one may think that
he succeeded.
A willow. still green, waves its de-
clining tendrils in the slight wind of
First Winter. The raindrops ruffle them
still more. This is that recently rare
thing. rainy cay, and the one at the
window is happy for it.