Evening star., 1949-10-24
This and That
By Charles E. Trace,OeH

1t was unusual to see so many leaves down
on such warm day.
1t showed their fall was not 50 much due
to frost, since there had been none, as to
other factors.
Leaves had fallen along our block in a
neat line along the street.
One could kick through them, If one were
so inclined, although no coat was in order,
and no hat, either, despite the clamor from
the hat manufacturers.
On such fall day as this hot one, who
but hat manufacturer would think of
hats?
Soon leaves will be burned by the ton,
mostly by unthinking persons who do not
know what else to do with them.
One way to use fallen Autumn leaves is to
make compost out of them
This annual advice is always good advice.
1t makes a real dirt gardener out of the
most lily-white person.
No matter if one has succumbed to the
temptation to get suntan or not, raking
leaves and composing them is healthy
fall exercise.
1t is conservation, too.
1t Is good conservation, one of the very
best, because it is both easy and interesting.
Sometimes conservation demands too
much. 1t is difficult to get the theory, and
even harder to work it out in everyday prac-
tice.
But almost any one can rake leaves, with
little will power and almost any one can
put them in heap, and almost any one
well, almost every ,one-can water them
down with the garden hose and turn them
over every week or so. In this way, in about
year or more, one gets good compost,
naturally rotted material that makes the
oil
Compost makers should never be irnpa-
tient. Nature works slowly. She doesn't
under stand the concept of time" any more
than aun1an beings do. Time is something
that actually doesn't exist for the animals
Since man is only one jump removed from
the nimal kingdom, and that only in a
way OF speaking, It is not strange that many
human beings really have no time concept
at all. All that exists for them is the now"
The past is gone, the future has still to be-
II they are good. they are good now; If bad,
they are bad nov. This is the animal out
look, and let nd one sneer at the animals
for they are very bright, very happy and
very honest, in their way. If they paint no
pictures. or invent no marvellous machines,
on the one hand, on the other they come up
with no atom bombs. It is easy to laugh
OH the animal lack of human wisdom, but
sometimes one may think some wise old
four-legged creature laughs in his furry
sleeve at human lack Of real animal intelli-
gence.
Sending countless tons Of precious leaves
up in smoke every fall is something to make
animals shudder.
Surely the plants, with queer intelligences
OF their own, might moan aloud at the de-
struction of so much good material
The way to make compost heap is to
take that unused corner of the yard, clear
out all the odds and ends Of old lumber,
good only as rat shelters, and put in q COM
post heap.
Then, instead of forgetting it, see to it
that it gets plenty Of water, not once or
twice, but regularly at least twice a week,
and also that the whole heap or at least
part Of 1t, is turned over from time to time.
This is practical home gardening at its
best. It stirs interest in gardening, at the
same time it satisfies something in the ma
ture Of man, a sense Of frugality that the
Scottish and the French somehow have man
aged to share between them, but which also
exists in other peoples and often in persons
who know it not. Let them rake up leaves,
not just destroy them, but make them into
something Of value, something that in fu-
ture years will make their gardens grow.
There comes that time concept again! 1t
seems impossible to get away from it. as
many human being has discovered who,
kicking nightly against daylight saving"
time, has found when he goes back to Slow
time that he cannot get used TO 1t at all.