GARDENER'S BACKACHE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 282, 8 June 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

GARDENER'S BACKACHE.

~C ik>.-w..s are reaping a pleasant little dn.v tati from patients with a new comrptaint wliose symptom is acute backThe patients are convinced that they have au, .sorts ot mortal maladies. The doctors know that ,they are merely sufleiing Irani gardeners' backache. A iew or the docions—Honest, foolish men —send their patients away with the injunction, "lake, your gardening easily and ouy a bottle 01 liniment." The majority oi the doctors say, " Umph. Han! iut-tut! breathe deeply, bay •99.' Paui m the baca mignt mean anything.' In the meantime nave this prescription made up and ill come round to-morrow."

Patriot toooVgrowers are suffering from gardeners' backache because, in laudable zeal, they are making the mistake of ail ardent amateurs when they first use a spade; tney dig without rest or respite, hardening is the last of all occupations that can oe rushed. Every amateur gaidener ought to paste above the oed wnerein he nightly lays his aching bones the fable of the tortoise and tne hare. Every allotment claimant, Before he sets to work upon his patch, ought to spare himself an hour to watch the professional gardener. 'The professional gardener is an irritating object for energetic men to behold. Before the-amateur has watch ,-U him ten minutes he longs to lay +>■* walking-stick about him or dope <uui with ginger and strychnine/ Xue professional gardener models his pace on that of the fauna of his garden; he moves with the swiftness of the slug and snail; he takes long periods of repose wherein he leans on his spade and surveys the sky, the horizon, or the moving life of other men. He falls into little day-dreams of his youth and early courtships; he has a corked can under hig folded coat whereunto he repairs for solace. But the strange thing about him is that he "gets there" just the same. Give him and an ardent amateur gardener two plots of equal size to dig, and he is finished first. He is a cunning [master of the law of the conservation of [energy. • • • • i There are days when the state Of the boil makes it-a torment to torn over five square yards of earth, and days jwhen it is like playing children's sand 'castles to dig up half a garden. But the amateur gardener makes his "'big push" on his first free day. H*s one aim is to bring his wife in the evening to see the result. "Look at to-days advance. Twenty yards on the whole [front! Captured the mole hills. Isolated we briar-bush salient. Bun an 'observation trench right up to old I Jones's front line! How's that for a iday's work?" Next day, of course, he lis groaning about the house, bent double. i "Slow and sure" is the only maxim of gardeners. The professional garden;«r tidies five minutes' bsck-straighten--sing between each ten minutes digging. iHe does not care what the world thinks; be ignores the gibes of the vulgar; he ■lives to dig another day. The amateur ?digs hour alter hour in a frenzy. He smites the earth with his spade like a %iew Moses expecting potatoes to spring from ihe rock. He lifts up enormous spadefuls of soil; exuhVng in his strength, he tosses them in the Kke pancakes—and smacks them down as if he were laying asphalt. He w mortally afraid of what the world thinks; he dreads the gibe 3 of the vulgar ; he digs on and on, forgetting that man is a creature made to walk upright and equipped with a vertebral Column. And then when his digging is done and the amateur gardener tries to straighten his back he goes through tortures. Sometimes he cannot straighten his back all at once; he has to do it by degrees. It is a sad sight!

xuO FORCE THE PACE!