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<h2>AGRICULTURE INDOORS</h2> The usual package of seeds has not arrived. Is the Hon.——, my Representative in Congress, neglecting me? The uncertainty appals. Year after year this eminent legislator has favored me with floral tributes in kernel form, so that I have come to think of them as my inalienable rights as a constituent. True, as is the case with the thousands of other voters in[Pg 53] this urban district which he represents, I have no facilities for horticulture. Living in a New York apartment seven stories up and unequipped with arable soil (the nondescript substance which deposits on my window sills from outshaken mops above would scarcely qualify as loam), I have been at a loss as to what disposition to make of said seeds. "My dear friend," writes the benevolent legislator, "I am inclosing a list issued by the Department of Agriculture showing bulletins available for free distribution, which contain very valuable information for all classes of readers." And he invites me to choose any six, by number, that he may promptly send them to me. Only six! To select that limited allotment from so alluring a galaxy is difficult, not to say bewildering. No. 73 catches my eye—"Fly Traps and Their Operation". I simply must have that one. It seems to promise an insight into the mysteries of oratory. Perhaps it may enable me the better to appreciate my M. C. Nor can I hope to live a rounded life if I[Pg 54] fail to assimilate No. 940, "Common White Grubs," and No. 920, "Milk Goats," and No. 788, "The Windbreak as a Farm Asset". That makes four already; to which I must certainly add the kindly No. 1105, "Care of Mature Fowls," and the arrestingly realistic No. 1085, "Hog Lice and Hog Mange". Thus my six choices are used up, and I am but at the threshold of this new world of knowledge that lies tantalizingly before me. What of No. 685, celebrating that splendidly uncompromising American growth, "The Native Persimmon," and the intriguingly cryptic Nos. 515 and 1143, revealing the secrets of "Vetches" and "Lespedeza as a Forage Crop"? Surely this coveted information should not be withheld from me. Why should I be deprived of the privilege of reading aloud to my family No. 762, "False Cinch Bug—Measures for Control," and No. 1127, "Peanut Growing for Profit," and No. 948, "The Rag-Doll Seed Tester"? If such romances were available for every one there would be less senseless gadding about on the part of our young folks. Let the flapper fill[Pg 55] her mind, not her flask, with No. 767, "Goose Raising," or No. 757, "Commercial Varieties of Alfalfa". And let her heed the warning against short skirts in No. 1135, "The Beef Calf". It has been said that there is in America insufficient appreciation of architecture. Ah, true, my friends. Let the multitude con No. 438, "Hog Houses," and, as examples of chaste suppression of meaningless ornamentation, Nos. 966 and 682—"A Simple Hog-Breeding Crate" and "Simple Trap Nest for Poultry". Included in this invaluable list are to be found not only the frankly practical but also the vividly dramatic. Offsetting such everyday but significant matters as No. 1189, "The Handling of Spinach for Shipment"; No. 1153, "Cowpea Utilization"; No. 1161, "Dodder," and No. 978, "Barnyard Manure in Eastern Pennsylvania," there are offered imagination stirring themes like No. 835, "How to Detect Outbreaks of Insects"; No. 874, "Swine Management," and No. 1003 (one that should be especially prized by the impecunious), "How to Control Billbugs". [Pg 56] Until I read this list I had no idea that spiritualism had entomological phases which Conan Doyle seems to have overlooked. Again and again there is mention of strange creatures and their psychic "controls": No. 1074, "The Bean Ladybird and Its Control"; No. 1060, "Harlequin Cabbage Bug and Its Control"; No. 897, "Fleas and Their Control," and No. 975 (presumably throwing light upon the immigration problem), "The Control of European Foulbrood". More comprehensible to me are the following. Anent home life and pets: No. 1014, "Wintering Bees in Cellars"; No. 1104, "Book Lice," and No. 846, "Tobacco Beetle and How to Prevent Loss". (Does one keep the beetle on a leash, I wonder?) Bolshevism: No. 1054, "The Loco Weed". Chambers of Commerce, Get-Together Clubs, etc.: No. 993, "Cooperative Bull Associations". Prohibitionists: No. 1220, "Insect and Fungus Enemies of the Grape". All in all, there are at least thirty bulletins which every citizen of this metropolis needs to make him an intelligent voter. And my[Pg 57] M. C. allows me but six! "My allotment being limited," he explains. But why should his allotment be thus limited? Since he grants that the bulletins are indispensable to my enlightenment, it is not for him to apologize, but to see that I am fully supplied with them. To protest that the Department of Agriculture cramps his largess is no excuse, for does not almighty Congress rule the Department of Agriculture and run it in the interests of the People and not for the sake of a lot of rubes? No; let him spur the department to greater efforts, press the presses to greater output. When my little son looks up into my eyes and asks, "Daddy, tell me about the flat-headed apple tree borer," am I to answer him: "Sorry, my boy, but Bulletin No. 1065 was denied me by a niggardly government?" My M. C. will not have done his complete duty till every home in this city boasts a five-foot shelf of bulletins and the head of every family can gather his dear ones about the radiator in the evening with a cheery: "Ah! now we take up No. 956, 'The Spotted[Pg 58] Garden Slug.' Every one who pays strict attention gets a hollyhock seed." Only then will the true function of government be realized. <blockquote>Meanwhile.... The seeds have come! </blockquote> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 59] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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