Evening star., 1942-06-04

nchiS "SbSmofc' bdIAClAAA-e Aatc
very late. For A years. or up
until a few months ago. the only
thing he had grown were whiskers,
and the only growing things he
could positively identify were the
rose, the pine and the sort OF ivy
that has its roots in so many Amer
ican mantelpieces.
Now-weI, he talks as If he had
roomed with Luther Burbank In
college, and his house is cluttered
with almanacs, garden magazines,
agricultural reports and enough
farm implements to keep half the
farm hands in Iowa busy.
He is a cinch to come down
with split shins from sprinting
home from his Office to sit on his
back porch and gaze out over his
farm" a plot OF ground which
lies between the garage and the
dog-run and which has every bit as
much acreage as four good-sized
card tables pushed together, He
grows dreamy-eyed just looking at
it, and often speaks Of the time
when his boy will be big enough
(the boys about now to take It
over.
There's nothing like farm for
boy to grow on" he says now
and again, as he rocks on the porch
from which Manhattan's spires are
visible in the distance, and which
shakes every minute or two as q
New York-bound interurban train
roars by. His wife is inwardly
afraid that her husband will be-
come a suburban Jeeter Lester
and give up his job to just sit on
the steps and trickle what he has
begun to refer to as "the Good
Earth between his fingers. She
has visions of Tobacco Road ex-
lstence and as often as she dares
she makes mention OF the hard
ships OF farming in her conversa-
ton.
During our week end there we
must have looked at the garden a
good so times, and the first so looks
are the hardest Nature is a sure
but slow worker and there is little
difference in the appearance of a
string bean shoot at noon and a
string bean shoot at 10 in the morn
ing. The same goes for radishes
and corn and all the other things
that come popping up and out of
the ground alongside the little sticks
with tags on them.
But amateur gardeners do not
seem to realize this. They seem
to feel that the things they have
planted, have dug around with
their own hands, grow an inch or
two a minute and that it is a great
treat for others to stand around
and watch the miracle.
There should be a law TO keep this
type of gardener from demanding
that friends look at his garden more
than once a day. There also should
be law against an amateur garden
er always saying, as he shows you
around, Its a shame you couldn't
have seen the garden when it was
at its best"
1t was Cornelia Otis Skinner, we
believe, who once wrote an article
saying that she had yet to see
flower garden at a time when the
owner thought it was at its height.
She pointed out that she was al
ways shown a garden either a week
too early or a week too late.
Victory garden owners are the
same. IF they could only have
seen it last week, before that heavy
rain" they say. Or. "A week from
now you won't know the place.
Everything1l be up"
OF course, every once in while
there is an excuse for these sort Of
apologies. Now take our own Vic
tory garden. A week ago 1t had
everything in the neighborhood beat
hollow. Then the moths or some
thing got in it and we'd be ashamed
to show it to anybody until we get
it back in shape. But drop by in
10 days or so and e. -
Distributed by McNaught Syndicate, Inet.