Great Men Speak about Gardening
Thomas Jefferson's Vegtable Garden
An old friend used to tell some of the men in his church -- where they are very anxious to delve deeper and deeper into theological, philosphical and historical topics -- moving from one to another as quickly as possible -- that they needed a "little less book and a little more hook". What he means is that rather than trying to get as much information as possible & read as many books as possible, they would be better served to read a book, then go sit on a creek bank and "wet a hook" ( fish) and contemplate what they had read before moving on.
I believe the same could be said, even more strongly about getting your fingernails dirty. Consider that many of the great men/ minds of the past, who have contributed so much to the body of knowledge we now have did not have a fraction of the information that we all have available to us now. They probably never saw, nor could they imagine, in their lifetimes the number of books we can obtain with ease (much less the immeasurable volume of information available electronically). . . yet they had something we sorely lack -- a slow and quiet enough lifestyle to THINK ( " Be STILL and know that I am God."; " Come, let us reason together, saith the Lord" etc.). Let us put our hands in the dirt and set our minds & hearts on contemplating the Glory of our great Creator and Redeemer.
In hopes of getting some of y'all out into your gardens, yards, patios, vacant lots or window boxes, I ask you to consider where our original Patriarch ( Adam) was placed and what work he was given to do -- the pefect enviorment and the ideal work .
Also, for your contemplation consider what some great men of the past and present have said about the garden :
"When all is said and done, is there any more wonderful sight, any moment when man's reason is nearer to some sort of contact with the nature of the world than the sowing of seeds, the planting of cuttings, the transplanting of shrubs
or the grafting of slips."
- St. Augustine
"No race can prosper until it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem."
- Booker T. Washington
"Nothing is more the child of art than a garden."
-Sir Walter Scott 1828
"There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me." - Thomas Jefferson, 1790
"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, no culture comparable to that of the garden ...
But though an old man, I am but a young gardener. "
- Thomas Jefferson, Garden Book, 1811
"Agriculture... is the first in utility, and ought to be the first in respect." --Thomas Jefferson to David Williams, 1803. ME 10:429
"I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442
"What this country needs is dirtier fingernails
and cleaner minds."
- Will Rogers
"There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling."
- Mirabel Osler ( I know this is not a "great man" -- but it's a pretty good quote anyway)
"If you grow a garden you are going to shed some sweat,
and you are going to spend some time bent over; you will
experience some aches and pains. But it is in the willingness to accept this discomfort that we strike the most telling blow against the power plants and what they represent."
- Wendell Berry
"One of the most important resources that a garden makes
available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden
gives the body the dignity of working in its own support.
It is a way of rejoining the human race. "
- Wendell Berry
More Later,
P. Leslie Riley, Jr.
