The Home Front:
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn The Old Farmer In the Suburbs I STARTED LIFE on a farm, and if I had had good sense I would have stayed there. You see, the farm is not merely a living: It...
...But this is not solely a matter of dollars and cents...
...But there were just too many trees in the garden...
...When the beans or peas or strawberries finally reach the table they are not just something which I have lugged home from the supermarket...
...It gives a man a chance to develop everything about him—his muscles, his habits, his mind, his knowledge, his ideals — everything...
...You did all of these different sorts of work by yourself or with the members of your family...
...There may be a deceptive aspect to my garden activities...
...Once a fellow has gotten used to living on the land, he can never be completely happy anywhere else...
...Every little change has been hailed with enthusiasm...
...Soon planting time will be here...
...I may be wrong, but it seems to me that this is just about the best sort of game a fellow can play...
...When it was time to harvest the grain or hay, I would work with my father and brother and a hired man...
...Even then we had sufficient interest in linguistics to figure out why we described such a weakling as having been "bushed...
...During the winter, with my heart fairly bleeding, I had cut down a hawthorn tree, one of my favorites...
...We have been watching all of these plants and shrubs and trees since the lingering autumn...
...Naturally, I thought about what a great man I would become when I grew up and left the farm and its work...
...From morning till noon and then on until evening I would follow the horse up and down the long rows...
...Yesterterday, I had set myself the task of chopping it up and getting it ready to burn...
...And while I was hacking and sawing away I inevitably thought of the days when, as a boy, I used to help my father saw down and chop up the maples and beeches used to feed the fire which heated our house in winter and cooked our food all through the year...
...It took, in fact, a good share of my morning...
...It was the day after the first day of spring and it was also the first day on which I had gone out into the garden and done a little real hard work...
...And now the great outburst of beauty is just upon the threshold...
...I greet each little plant when it pokes its dainty sprig above the ground...
...So with saw and axe 1 went to work and laid it low...
...You see, the farm is not merely a living: It is a way of life...
...You flail away month after month—and all you have for a reward are some figures on a card...
...Often when I was still a small boy I would be set to work with a horse cultivating a field of corn or potatoes...
...It was tough and straight, and every spring it showered the world with its white blossoms...
...But the crocuses are in bright bloom, the forsythia is a flaming yellow, the honeysuckle bush fills the garden with perfume, the red maples are practically aflame and the daffodils are lining up in sturdy rows prepared to burst into color...
...That animal became for me an important member of the family...
...The bed of strawberries is the only part of the vegetable garden which is alive and alert right now...
...It is a fine game and there are social aspects which are really satisfactory...
...You practically never lose...
...You got used to being alone...
...Life is going on...
...When I do all of the things one does in the garden, I am repeating the motions of my far-off boyhood...
...I suppose the tomatoes, peppers, squash and eggplants could all be bought in the market at about half the price they cost to raise in my very short garden rows...
...Well, reducing that tree to managable sticks of wood ready for the sacrificial fire proved to be quite a job...
...I dig and hoe and pound and scatter fertilizer...
...These are some of the things which I thought about yesterday...
...It seemed especially cheerful when the hired man was stricken by the heat and my brother and I would carry him from our fields and deposit him under the friendly shade of a convenient bush...
...There was a period in my life when I did my best to make the old game of golf serve as a substitute for the rigors of my earlier labors on the farm...
...We are not falling into decay...
...My father and George "Washington agreed that farm life is the best life—and they were a strong combination...
...And when I roll up my sleeves, I can see that the old farm muscles are still in place...
...I have produced them and it is, of course, a part of my delight to take credit for any specially delightful flavor which they may exhibit...
...They are my own vegetable children...
...That seemed quite a gay and sociable sort of activity...
...They were crowding one another and making it impossible to grow a lawn...
...But an old farmer must always feel that it is a little silly to chase a tiny ball about a great field with a bag of carefully designed and very expensive clubs...
...And once my mind went back to boyhood experiences, I soon began to think of other sorts of work, planting corn and potatoes, cutting hay and stowing it away in the barns, harvesting grain and all the other necessary chores...
Vol. 44 • April 1961 • No. 15
