FIRST CROP OF SPRING

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22509, 17 September 1938, Page 21

FIRST CROP OF SPRING

[By L. R. HOBBS.I

EVERY -morning for the last week I have been dragged out of bed at an unearthly hour and anade.Jn spite of sleepy protests, ,to join a procession to inspect the estate. You see, some weeks ago , the garden,, after being suitably dug for the occasion; was sown with various things, and Belinda's waking thought each morning is a feel-; ' ing of quiet confidence that the first plants will be pushing their heads through the ground. So far that quiet confidence has fceen absolutely unfulfilled. Every time that I have pointed pridefully to a few signs of new plant life it has turned out to be a false alarm. 'Just another weed breaking through the soil. It has,been an intensive spring gardening programme Belinda has carried - out. The trouble with too many private vegetable gardens, -Belinda declared one day after a close study, of the gardening notes, ■was a lack of system. So we were going to be systematic. Each day. .was to be given over to a well-: "•; >defined-" job—rotational farming in I* small way, more or less. _ - • ~ Close study has convinced Belinda ,of the need for planned manage- ' , jment of every phase of home gardening. The gardening notes in -•The Press" are learned almost off by heart; instructions are carried but to the letter, and forced labour is recruited to carry out the heavier and less skilled tasks. I am the forced labour. . The neglect of an agricultural bias in my education has rendered hie unfit for the more responsible I tasks. But there must always be a I- man about the house to do the spade * work—and how true that phrase'is. s -Our garden is not a big one, as areas go. Weeds find it so small that they simply gallop over it. But, from the point of view of him who „ digs, it is a big garden. The num- * ber of cubic feet my spade has turned over would astound you. It astounds me. But all the digging is done now. 'All that is required to do is. wait Until the plants come up, and wage x Unceasing war on weeds. And what a war! Mobs of undesirable aliens inake life much harder for all bur farefully nurtured plants. And the job of seeing that they are deported ' is deputed to me—as the unpaid Yiinder-gardener. ' I have tracked _fwitch roots to their lair through .. ■ leaning acres" of garden, often, through preoccupation, finishing up V'iin the next-door orchard. I have >ifigged at thistles arid pulled up |' "half the garden with them, as well .undermining the foundations of ijgthe next-door garage, arid the varieties, dandelioris and •fSehickweed,-find me a bitter enemy. f&ad what do I get for it?— Next

Belinda in the Garden

(SPICIALLT WaiTTZH-*OB TBI PMSS.)

morning the weed crop seems just as big. - .'•' • ■'■' •.,, But as Belinda points out, its well worth the struggle. Last'year our gariden produced: vegetables that, had we bought them as lazier people do from a shop, would have set back oiir budget 18s 3Jd. Belinda kept a notebook of all the crops we harvested, so to speak, and that was the final result. And 18s 3id saved is 18s 3Jd earned, Belinda always says. It might be pointed out, however, that if the labourer is worthy of his hire for 180 hours' work (of that I kept my own record) then 18s 3|d is a pretty poor return. Of course; Belinda says it should be a hobby. .. After listening at some length, while I have been ..digging or acting' as weeder-in-chief, to the strains of Parliament coming over the nextdoor wireless set, I have come to the conclusion, however, that I am wrong to. be - doing, what I. am in the garden. 1 Some gardener with a wife and nine- children wants work. I don't—particularly in my spare time.■•■■.-And in any case 'it is surely anti-social for me to be taking the bread and butter from the mouth of "the ninth child. And think of the poor market gardener who counted on my 18s 3|d last summer to pay his son's way through college—and. then didn't get it. It's all wrong,* but I haven't yet con-

vinced Belinda, who hasn't a keen mind for social problems. ' However, I have to report that even if the'' garden this year has failed to produce.a promising crop of new plants,. it has at least produced one crop. In the garden one afternoon not long ago, Belinda took time off to gossip with the woman over the back fence. Now gardening has been temporarily suspended and time taken off to nurse a really fine crop—of measles.

Britain's Giant Liner

Britain, will.offer the sea a new queen shortly, when the 85,000-ton luxury liner Queen Elizabeth is launched. The graceful lines of the vast Cunard-White Star vessel. are to be seen in an. 11-foot scale model recently built. Its bow is of semiclipper design, slanting back to the waterline. The two huge funnels are pear-shaped. Missing: from the decks are the traditional ventilators, which are supplanted by a louvre ventilating system, by which fans will distribute fresh air at' a controlled temperature, hot or cool, to the cabins arid public rqoms. Between bridge and bow a streamline breakwater will sweep water overboard. *:._,„ --'-..->..