The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1951-05-04

crlng 0OgWOOu. mo uOuDC ~ SHOWS
the inadequacy of our education
that we do not know a good one
for if ever there were source of
inspiration for poetry in nature !.
The above paragraphs show
that we are at peace with the veg
etable world. But the animal
world! Well, for US, jus now the
animal worlds nothing but rab-
bits-and, br-rrrr-otherrrl how we
loathe rabbits!
Our deep and profound detesta-
ton of the ravenous, poaching lit
tie rodent, the rabbit, is not de-
rived from what the puffy-tailed
demon has done to our nervous
system and blood pressure: it
comes of what the long-eared mis-
creant has done to our peas.
Nell and l are no expert gar
deners. But seeing things grow
gives US a thrill and makes US
happy, somehow, in a way that's
quite apart from any thought of
raising food for the table or of the
blossoms that may eventuate
when one puts a petunia seed In
the ground. We get a kind of par
entail feeling about rows OF
sprouts and are even made so daft
by them that we have sometimes
talked to radishes or bean vines as
we puttered along the rows pull
ing up weeds. When a carrot is
very young, one naturally lisps at
it as one might a baby.
Vic has provided US with a
large plot of ground to use for
our garden this spring. Having
lived in apartments and in towns
where tillable space was scarce
for so long, we've been in kind
of continuing tizzy since early
March, grubbing in the soil, coax
ing sproutlings to lift their heads
and muttering imprecations at the
/ burgeoning weeds. Very well.
Now, it has been the peas which
responded to our encouraging
mumbles most rapidly. The peas
had done so we'll we were begin
ming to address them in the ma
turer language one uses with ad-
olescents. Then, week ago, when
Nell went to the garden plot to
bid all the vegetation good NOR
row, she found that the two ear
hest rows of peas had been raw
ished of leaves during the night
and all the plants were broken
and dying. Rabbits!
At noon we looked at the wreck
of our pea patch. After the blood
vessels in our throat stopped
throbbing and our hands stopped
twitching enough so we could lift
the strand of barbed wire without
shaking the fence posts, we crept
through the fence and went into
the house-where we alternated
between snarling at Nell and the
baby and threatening to throw the
/ radio through the window until 1t
was time to go back to the office.
That night we couldn't sleep.
The bedroom was crowded with
giant rabbits with great, ragged,
luminous teeth. AS they wouldn't
be frightened away when we bar
ed our own yellowed incisors at
them, we finally rolled over, put
our head in the pillow and resolv-
ed to ignore 'em, though we knew
that creatures who made cowardly
nocturnal attacks on innocent peas
might very well rip into our un-
protected back with their hateful,
cleaning teeth.
1t was no use, of course. We fell
a-plotting ways to defeat the fur
ry marauders, none of the ways
practical. We dwelt upon the re-
productive capacity of the rabbit
and were sure that we could not
push pea seeds into the soil in
the hope that the plants would
spring up faster than the rabbits
added to their numbers.
AS we became more somnolent,
we thought of the selective breed
ing experiments that have pro-
duced kinds of hybrid corn with
characteristics the experimenters
desired to perpetuate, of how cat
tie have been carefully bred to
produce superior herds. We had
determined exactly how to cope
with our rabbit problem when we
finally slipped away into slumber:
we were going to suggest that the
state agricultural experiment sta
ton develop a strain of rabbits
which would live and thrive only
on weeds that gardeners abhor.
We thought that the introduction
of the characteristics of the mon
goose into the strain would be a
desirable addition; so that the
mongoose-rabbits would eat up all
the unwanted vegetation in the
garden and feed also on stray
rabbits that poked their ugly ears
4 4 L - p