THE CATCH IN HUSBANDRY

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 9, 4 December 1931, Page 3

THE CATCH IN HUSBANDRY

Last spring I observed : “If a garden I grow Filled with lettuce and spinach and beans, My daily expenses will run low And perhaps I shall husband my means. Why pay out my cash for the greengrocer’s stuff When my family all may be fed From a garden that furnishes more than enough And at merely a few pence per head?” So I bought me a spade and a rake and a hoe And a few dozen packets of seeds, And read up on methods of making them grow So they shortly might serve all my needs. The aphides and beetles did mischief, of course, But these vermin on poison I fed, And watched them with never a pang of remorse While they fell from the plants, cold and dead. But the beet tops soon withered, the beans failed to sprout, The lettuce grew flabby and pale, The early fall strawberries failed to come out And wholly inert was the kale. So I went to a neighbour and asked him the cause Of the course that my garden pursued. And he told me that, following natural laws, A garden would have to have food. Now here was a slip-up of nature, indeed! No sense in the thing could I see, For I had on my hands a great garden to feed Which I fancied would shortly feed me. So I know why the farmers are issuch a plight And for yearly relief must entreat; The poor things must labour far into the night To get food for their oats and their wheat.