The Heart Potato 



By Edward F. Bigelow, Arcadia, Sound Beach, Conn. 



From some genuine students and lovers of old JNIother 

 Nature I have recently received the gift of a potato in 

 the form of a heart. My friends write: 



"It is as if Mother Earth, whose bosom is the burial 

 place of so much that we love, had relented as to the 

 secrets within her breast this once, and had sent to us, 

 out of the mold of centuries. Iter heart bidding us hold 

 to the love that nurtured us, and that all is well for us 

 and for her!" 



Yes, they are right. Though it may be, "Only an em- 

 blem of a heart — only a commonplace potato. I3ut life's 

 greatest joys and sorrows are expressed in emblems of 

 commonplace material. Yet, are not emblems and the 

 ideals for which they stand, all that makes life worth liv- 

 ing^ — and even death worth the dying? 



"Only a circle of gold typifying never ending union 

 of two lives in never ending love ; only a few drops of 

 water and the real life has begun ; only a change of form 

 and a handful of dust, "earth to earth' — ideals and their 

 emblems are everything; they are the reality, and if the 

 daisy shall bring thoughts too deep for tears, so shall 

 the heart buried in Mother Earth, returning in one of 

 her commonplace products, rightly 'awaken thoughts too 

 deep for expression.' " 



I have a friend, a farmer poet, i\Ir. Charles H. Cran- 

 dall, of Idylland, Stamford, Connecticut, to whom I told 

 the story of the heart-shaped potato, and who saw poetry 

 and pathos in this emblem that came from the heart of 

 Mother Earth. He has expressed his beautiful thought 

 in the following lines : 



We buried a Heart in the mother mold. 

 A Heart that was silent, still and cold, 

 And we went about in our saddened round. 

 Trying to smile as we tilled the ground. 

 Dropping the seed in the fruitful earth. 

 Praying, with faith, for the timely birth 

 Of fiower and fruitage to greet our eyes — 

 But oh, that Heart we buried with sighs ! 

 Of the flower and harvest we feel so sure! 

 But what of that Heart ? Shall it endure ? 



Blade and leaf and blossom have come. 

 Frost the garden will soon benumb. 

 Faith is faltering, promises weak : 

 But still the earth has a word to speak, 

 As out of the soil we lift this sign — 

 Life, like all life, ever divine — 

 Lowly type of immortal kind. 

 Bringing the promise again to mind : 

 "Hearts may be dust, hearts' love remain : 

 Hearts" love shall greet us yet again." 



There is no commonplace. When we erroneously re- 

 gard anything as commonplace, it is simply because oui 

 finer sensibilities, by hard knocks of our everyday toil, 

 have become calloused, and have lost their keen edge, and 

 we fail to appreciate common things. Much would be 

 • added to the joys of life if we could retain that keen edge, 

 that delicate susceptibility to the influence of nature that 

 we possess in our youth. It is a pity that we accept so 

 much as a matter of course, the miracles that Mother 

 Earth shows in what we call horticulture. Not only fig- 

 uratively do we in our bereavement bury a heart in the 

 earth, but at every sowing of seed, we sow our heart's 

 desires in unwavering faith. The ground of any garden 

 is sacred ground. It is a gift from the Infinite with in- 

 finite possibilities. What is that luysterious s<imctliing in 



the seed that we place in this cold ground, and wait for 

 what we know will come? A garden and a cemetery are 

 sacred places. From each will come a joyous resurrection. 

 Every gardener should be an optimist. The world does 

 improve, the human race is growing better, we are hav- 

 ing a kinder feeling for one another. We are not only 

 improving our fruits and flowers, but we are improving 

 our human beings as well as other forms of animal life. 

 Men ma_v become what they wish to be, and they make 

 other things what they want them to be. Think of it 

 strongly enough and you mould the world to your wishes. 

 Bring your influence to bear on the "love apple" and it 

 becomes a tomato. Make your will strong enough, and 

 from the fine petals of the wild rose, you may evolve the 

 thousand of the moss rose. 



Why did this potato take the form of a heart? There 

 is a bigger question than that. I do not know why, and 

 1 do not know why that form is not given to all others. 

 It is no more sacred than any other shape. Why is the 

 unusual so attractive, when all so-called commonplace 

 nature will, if rightl\- viewed, have an influence as 

 important ? 



