/DM? UGlfnter Garben 



all the secrets of vegetable-growing. With 

 a short-handled hoe he goes about, digging 

 industriously around the roots of things, 

 his back arched like a furious cat's, his nose 

 almost touching the ground. It is he who 

 brings in the great heads of cauliflower, 

 the young red radishes, the silver-tipped 

 onion-shoots, the spinach, the crisp lettuce, 

 the bur-artichokes, and the strawberries. 

 Everything, indeed, which can be coaxed 

 or forced to grow into edible bulb, leaf, 

 stalk, flower, or fruit he wrestles with. 

 All sorts of phosphates, cotton- seed 

 meal, bone-dust, leaf-mold, and swamp- 

 muck are lavished to fertilize the sand 

 withal. He feeds his plants as if they 

 were his children, talking to them in a queer 

 monotone while pruning, weeding, and 

 watering them. It is from his area of 

 cultivation that comes all this pungency 

 which now and again loads the air. A 

 whiff of garlic even strays into the flower- 

 plats, and makes an inartistic foil for the 

 perfume of rose and the aroma of acacia. 

 Our neighbors, scattered hither and yon 

 in the vast pine wood, come and go along 



21 



