Germane to the Vernal Theme

Reflections Upon the Necessity of Writing About Our Spring Garden Drive

ALBERT LEE

THERE are certain hide-bound conventions which every magazine finds it necessary to conform to. The most pestilent of these prehistoric traditions is the so-called Christmas number; but other minor Old-menf-the-sea are the annual article on New Year's resolutions, the Fourth of July poems, Easter Hymns, and Odes to Spring.

Look back at Vanity Fair last year, and the year before, and the year before that, and you will find an article about Spring. Just as if everybody did not know that Spring was here, or coming, or, at any rate, due.

The public demand Spring literature. They want to read about the flowers, and the gardens, and the vegetables. A lot of people, this year, want to read about Spring in relation to the war. Ordinarily the writer on Spring has to appeal only to the farmer, or would-be farmer. This year he must appeal to the soldier, too. He is compelled to make himself into a sort of Bolshevik. He must turn himself into a kind of Soldier's and Workmen's deputy, and talk about conservation without annexation or indemnity.

This is somewhat difficult, because it is quite a problem to conserve anything without annexing it first,—as the Prussian General von Hoffman so candidly disclosed at BrestLitovsk. And I have never yet heard of a seedsman who did not require a certain indemnity, before he relinquished possession of those little packets, with lovely pictures on them of what is later on to be conserved in the home.

BUT, to return to Spring. We must assume the point of view of a Soldier's and Workmen's commissary, and explain how easy it is to raise crops by agreement. There are three kinds of crops,—agricultural, riding, and chicken. Each is unquestionably entitled to self-determination; but we shall limit our discussion, for the present, to the first variety. That is the proper sphere for a commissary, whether he be a Soldier's and Workmen's commissary, or just a plain commissary sergeant.

The matter of self-determination among crops is all very well in theory, as it is, in theory, with small nations. But the trouble with crops is that you have mostly to do the determining yourself. I remember very well how I once planted a nice little garden in nice little rows, and put the gaudy little seed envelopes on little sticks at the ends of the rows, so that I should know what I got when I got it. But, that year, we had one of those late Springs,—one of those windy, wet, Walloon Springs; and the winds came and blew my little lithographs all over the neighbor's lawn. The result was that I had to determine for myself what was what among all those little green rows when they sprouted, which they finally did.

The trouble with me was, as I have since learned, that my efforts lacked coordination.

Of course, I did not know that then, because none of us knew anything about coordination at that time. It is only recently that we have heard of this disease, or ailment, or natural defect, or whatever it may be.

Five years ago, all our shortcomings were attributed to a lack of psychology. Psychology could mend anything,—even the drama. A couple of years later, some fellow in the Middle West discovered that the Prussians had discovered efficiency, and then we found out that the trouble with all of us, and with our business, and with the railroads and with the Post Office, was simply a lack of efficiency. Thus the pursuit of efficiency became a great sport in America.

And then, just as we were all getting terribly efficient, along came Senator Chamberlain, who told us that the trouble with everything in America is lack of coordination. Secretary Baker and I don't know exactly what coordination is, but we feel that it is some kind of an insulting thing you can say about a man without running any serious risk of receiving physical injuries. It gets his goat, so to say, without giving him sufficient grounds to begin suit for restitution of the animal in question.

The right thing, therefore, is to coordinate our efforts this Spring, instead of fussing over the psychology of Springtime, as we did a few years ago, or of trying to be efficient, as we did last year. Next Spring, probably, coordination will be in the discard, along with the Huns, and we shall be attempting something else,— probably something we shall learn from the Germans this summer.

As to efficiency! All the lounge-room orators at my club declaim so much about the stupendous efficiency of Germany, and the marvelous coordination of German effort, that, being a good American, I almost feel like rooting for inefficiency and lack of coordination. No doubt the War Department felt exactly the same way; because I am sure Mr. Baker is a patriot, and probably he did not want, in his organization, any of this efficiency and coordination stuff that was made in Germany.

PERHAPS it is not plain to the average mind what all this may have to do with Spring. But, if the average mind will only stop a minute to think,—or, rather, stop stopping and begin thinking,—the connection will immediately become obvious.

It was only the other day that I determined to coordinate my own thinking apparatus, and see if I could not do something more for my country than write letters to the newspapers about the price of sugar and other necessities of good living. Having Springlike thoughts, and looking forward already to the time when I shall be able to get out into the country again, it occurred to me it might be an excellent thing this year to have a better-than-ever Hooverissimus vegetable garden.

Almost every Spring, I start a garden as soon as I get into the country. But none of my gardens ever seem to have vigor enough to last into the summer. Perhaps it is my fault. Somehow I get lazy, or discouraged, and the vegetables get affected by my lack of efficiency, or by rust, or mildew, or something, and along about the Fourth of July I own the most wonderful crop of wild flowers (my family calls them weeds) where I had expected to have peas and beans and carrots.

I am convinced that my previous failures have been due to lack of coordination. I have decided to follow Mr. Baker's example, and change my ways. Hindenburg, you will remember, says in his book on "The Technique of Devastation" that in order to succeed, one must concentrate all one's efforts on a single objective. It seemed to me, therefore, that if I concentrated on one vegetable, I should succeed. After considerable reflection, I determined to concentrate on peas. I have always liked pea soup, and little green French peas, and macedoine salad, and chops with green peas, and omelette aux petits-pois. So, I announced to my family, one evening, at dinner, that, this Spring, I was going to be a Hindenburg and go in exclusively for peas.

"I think it is a very good idea," said the Lady of the House, "but you must be sure to pick out good colors."

"You mean good flavors," I corrected.

"I never tasted any," she replied. "I suppose, of course, you are talking about sweet peas."

"Well.—yes, er —and no," I stammered, for I had not gone into the pea question very deeply yet, and I was not sure whether there were both sweet and sour peas. I had always eaten sweet ones. Mine was but a sort of bill-of-fare familiarity with peas.

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"What variety do you expect to put in?" asked my wife's second-cousin-bymarriage, from Akron, Ohio, who happened to be dining with us that night.

She had me stumped for a moment. But, sometimes my mind works very quickly, and this time I came right back at her with my answer.

"Variety?" I exclaimed. "Why, the regular variety, the petits-pois, you know."

"Never heard of them," she sniffed, as most middle-westerners sniff. "Out home we find we get the best results from the Giant Spencer Ponderosa Multiflorus. After they once begin to bloom, you have them on the table all summer,"

"Three times a week would do me," I said.

"What do you mean,—three times a week?" asked my wife.

"Well, my dear," I explained, "I am fond of peas, but I don't want them every day—"

"You did not expect to eat sweet peas, did you ?"

"That's what I was going to grow them for," I replied with some finality. "What did you think they were for?"

"To decorate the table," she said.

"Well, mine are going to decorate the soup, and the mutton chops, and the lobster cutlets,—"

"Oh, he means plain, ordinary peas," interrupted the Cousin, with exquisite scorn. Whereupon there was a short free-for-all war conference, which ended in a badly patched up Democratic peace. That's the kind of peace I always have in my family, this same peace by agreement they talk so much about in the newspapers. You can always have peace by agreement if you agree to the other side's terms. That's what peace by agreement means. Ask Hindenburg.

SO, the next day, I thought I would look up this sweet pea industry, and find out how about it. I went to Brentano's, and bought what the ex-moving picture actress in the Horticultural and Botanical Department told me was the best of all the best books on gardening.

I got into a bus, and, after bumping along a few blocks, I found the place where the sweet-pea information began. The author's name, on the title page of this book, is Arthur Percy Harrowgate. But I'll swear that that is an assumed name, and that he is in fact, a German. His book is a subtle kind of propaganda scheme to show Germans in America not only how to prepare for der pea but for Der Tag.

Mf\ Harrowgate begins by expressing a few banal generalties about the sweet pea as a sweet pea, and then he calls attention to the proper "cultural directions." This is all camouflage, of course, and the word "cultural" is merely the Prussian word Kultur in disguise. It acts as a sort of tip, or code key, for loyal German spies, calling their attention to where the real propaganda dope begins. It begins in this way: "First, dig a trench three and a half to four feet deep, and, at intervals of six feet, fix firmly in the ground stout posts, which should stand four to five feet above the ground. To these posts nail strong wire netting."

Anybody can see that this is nothing more than the latest Hindenburg method of constructing trenches and wire entanglements. And all this is offered under the thin disguise of information about sweet peas!

I have just sent the book to the Secret Service Department at Washington.

But, there's no use crying over split peas. Besides, if there is any truth in this trench-digging business, sweet pea culture would not be at all in my 1⅛. So, I coordinated my mind again, and came to the conclusion that perhaps, after all, German efficiency and other things, such as poison gas and childmurder, can be copied and adapted and suited to local conditions. I could suit these admirably to my own local conditions, except that I am, somehow, always a little afraid of the police.

YET there are one or two other things besides crime in which the Germans have displayed a certain amount of ingenuity. Take food substitutes, for example. I am told they make spinach out of sea-weed, and tea out of oak leaves, and heavens knows what out of acorns.

I think I will go down South to that place where they keep the German spies and bomb-throwers and bankers and other Teuton noblemen in a bull-pen,— it's Fort Ogle-something, in Georgia,— and ask the General in charge if he will let me go inside the cage and pick out a coordinating, efficient German Professor. If I get away with that, I'll take him up to the country with me this Spring, and intern him in an old tool-shed I have in my back garden, and put hog wire all around him. I don't intend to be cruel or unkind to him just because he is a German. On the contrary, I'll follow our Government's wishes and make him feel as much at home as I possibly can. I mean, as much at home as if he were now actually in Germany. He shall have a place in the sun, because there is not a tree within fifty yards of that shack, and I'll feed him on potato skins, and vegetable ends; and he shall have porkless, cabbageless, beerless, pretzelless, cheeseless and otherless days on Wednesdays, Mondays, Thursdays, Sundays, Fridays, Tuesdays and Saturdays. He shall have thirty grammes of bread twice a week, and no fats, or proteids, or carbohydrates, except on the Kaiser's birthday and the day Von Tirpitz is hanged.

OF course, at first thought, it may appear inconsiderate, and even a trifle dangerous, to introduce a German professor into a quiet, reputable rural community where there are children and pet animals all about. But I have taken all this carefully into consideration, and, realizing the responsibility that rests on me, I shall exercise the greatest care and vigilance. I won't let him have any matches to play with, and I'll search him every day to make sure he has no bombs or ground glass or trinitrotoluol or picric acid or any of those other things one usually finds on German professors.

And after I get my German gentleman well fenced in and accustomed to his surroundings so that he won't scratch himself against the wire, I am going to make him get efficient in a wholly new way. I am going to work out for him an American or Allied method of coordination by which he will learn to convert my weed crop into flowers that are good to look upon and food that is good to eat. For the weakness of all German gardening plans has been that they have all been enthusiastic over coordination, self determination—all weeds. They have wholly lost sight of the fact that right minded men cherish an intense predilection for real flowers and real food, however inefficient the cultivation of them may be.