RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30677, 17 February 1965, Page 28

RANDOM REMINDER

BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR

The streets of this fair city may not be paved with gold, but nevertheless, a man can get along if he keeps his eyes open. A non-gardening character in a northern suburb does it very well indeed. He calls it living off the land, not scrounging, and it’s far from being a band to mouth existence. He discovered when he bought his home early last winter that the property was bordered with large gardens and magnificent fruit trees. First fruits were walnuts, plopping thickly on his drive. He thought, poor innocent, of complaining before he saw the economic possibilities of this largesse. Then in the spring he was de-

lighted at the fine display of blossom on neighbouring fruit trees and was heard to remark over the back and side fences that he hoped everyone was keeping up with the old spraying programme, what, and how were their peas, lettuces, cabbages, beans, etc., coming along. Nothing touches a gardener more than this sort of solicitude and before you could say artificial fertiliser, the neighbours were practically beating a path to his door to deposit their hand-reared goodies. Any surplus went into the deep freeze. He found that one neighbour fishes, successfully, and another goes off shooting deer regularly. They both hate to see the stuff wasted.

But the coining of autumn brought a real glint to bis eye. The fruit trees, Tor some reason, bow over into his neglected patch—he denies bending the twigs—and he picks at his leisure a fine variety of stone fruit, apples, pears and, for variety, a quint a or two. He noted recently with approval that the crab apples on the tree outside his front gate were just ready for jelly; and the other morning, when out skimming over his neighbour's paper, he made a really interesting discovery which has brightened the waning days: mushrooms have sprung up on the lawn frontages of both neighbours and—well it's public property isn't it?