CHAPTER VI 



GARDEN INSTINCT REVEALED BY WAR 



"The kiss of the sun for pardon; 

 The song of the birds for mirth; 

 One is nearer God's heart in a garden 

 Than anywhere else on earth." 



THERE are those who deny that there is any 

 such thing as a latent love for the soil in the 

 hearts of our urban masses. They assert that 

 the last thing that would appeal to these people is a 

 patch of ground and a hoe; that they have turned 

 their back on the country with a sigh of relief and a 

 grim determination to have no more of it; that their 

 whole interest in life is bounded by the metropolitan 

 horizon ; that within these limits are their livelihood, 

 their social, intellectual and religious interests; and, 

 beyond an occasional picnic in the woods, they care for 

 naught else. 



Such criticism, of course, loses most of its force 

 when applied to the garden home, which simply en- 

 larges the city boundaries and sacrifices little or 

 nothing in the way of urban advantages. Apart from 

 that, however, the criticism rests on mistaken grounds. 

 Love for the soil has not gone out of men's hearts. 

 It is a primal instinct which may have been repressed, 

 or even paralyzed for the time, but can no more be 

 destroyed than love of family or love of country. 

 It is of divine substance — hence, indestructible. 



75 



