Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1937-11-11

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and contemporary limitations, good
fun-and possibly much more. At the
very least it provokes merriment and,
at fortunate moments, in happy in
stances, it still is the Indictment to
beauty and wisdom as well.
Puritians and Robins
On one October Sunday / stood
under hickory tree and watched
droves of robins announce their
arrival at their winter home. My
thoughts were that men who had lived
in crowded, pent-up streets, through
whole lives of toll; men to whom
custom had indeed been second nature,
and who had come almost to love the
brick and stone that formed the
narrow boundaries of their daily
walks, can never appreciate the
arrival of the robin as he comes
sweeping down in droves from the
North to the treetops surroundings
the branches and swamps next to the
cotton fields of middle Georgia. Their
coming was a sign of winter and a
warning that frost was in the air.
Those robin calls, this morning,
brought back memories of the days
/ use to pad up and down the cotton
rows gathering the last bolls; after
which left the brown, naked, dead
stalks to the winters wind.
Today, when the boys and / had
finished harvesting our yellow corn,
our magic crop, we paused as the
Puritians did of old, and gave thanks
for the gift of corn. gave thanks
for memories Of the past when loved
to sing song Of seasons, something
bright in ALI. Popcorn in the winter,
showers in the spring, flowers in the
summer, and robins in the fall.
If you could get a long-range,
bird's-eye view of this vast country,
the landscape would lie before you
like patchwork quilt of fields. From
ocean to ocean, millions of fertile
farms lie side by side, eternally
growing foodstuffs for human beings.
And you and / are the sons of this
Agriculture. We smile when she
smiles. We are efficient because of
the so called centers of activity
man made cities.
See the smoke plumes rising every
where like tufts on the patch work
quilt. These are the places that you
and I cannot be crowded into-the
packed places where live Manufact-
ures and Commerce and Traffic.
These thrive however only when
Agriculture smiles, because Agricul.
ture mothers the world. Our nations
life grows out Of the soil we stir
let no man forget that.
You must not suppose that the
the greatness Of the patchwork quilt
or the citiees can be measured wholly
lin terms Of food. That is important,
no doubt, but Il isn't the most i'm
portant thing. It is the divorce Of
our enterprising people from the soil
We have the land and we must
begin to rebuild Il. We must take
men from streets and put them in
gardens, where we will be able to
make new creatures of hem, for
growing crops, with their silence and
the pulses of fragrance that come and
go, affect them like sweet music.
/ know a bank president, for ex-
ample, outwardly the most ordinary
OF his kind. But one night mention
ed the stirring of the soil and its after
effects, touched the key of his soul,
and discovered that he is going about
his, daily work irradiated by the
thought of his dream of crops and
animals. He has, already, the spirit
OK the earth in his bones.
Among flowers and trees, told
him, "Nature take you into her own
hands, and makes you breathe as
freely as did Adam and Eve" So you
can get on terms with the highest if
you will discuss the possibilities in
working the fertile earth.
Mr.