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Show O Uncommon Sense By John 5lake GROW OR DIE I DISLIKE to hear people slander a good active useful vegetable garden gar-den by using the word "vegetate" to indicate idleness. I believe that of all life, the only thing capable of utter inactivity is a lazy mind. There is no idleness in the vegetable kingdom. It Is always at work. The tree thrusts its branches up toward to-ward the sky, building as it climbs a wonderful canal system to carry the materials of construction along to where- they are needed. Toss a pebble into a pond, or into the sea, and the process of vegetation, will -soon begin to coat it with minute mi-nute growths, which in the mass give it the color of the surrounding mud or sand. In the tropics hardly has the ax ot the engineer cleared the way for a new road before the vegetation resumes re-sumes its task, and without constant clearing, or the construction of hard Stonp nr fptnpnt rnnla f-ha man nrill soon be obliterated. This, then, is what it means to vegetate. veg-etate. And if man really "vegetated" as he is often accused of doing, it would be far better of him. The trouble with us members of a highly endowed race is that we do not work when we think. We think, of course, we must think. Only in sleep can the mind be turned off like a light. It will continue to operate whether we want it to or not. But it will operate without produc- ing anything, like the wheel on a line-shaft line-shaft which is called an idler, unless we put a little effort behind it If, like a vegetable, we could achieve our destiny without thinking we should have less excuse for allowing allow-ing our minds to loaf. But by sitting still and watching our bodies get fat, and our hair grow longer long-er we soon become so useless that our fellow beings would be justified in getting get-ting rid of us. : ' Nature also forces us to keep our minds mildly active. But to make them intensely active and productive is our own affair. We were given the minds it is for us to use them. They differ in quality, but the poorest poor-est of them can he made to do better work than they commonly do. And the best of them seldom accomplish ac-complish as much as they ought to. Could we work those mind? half as constantly and vigorously as the vegetable vege-table employs the sap and cells by which It grows, there would be fewer reasons to complain of the bitterness of life, much less discontent, and no crime at all. But we are all "just naturally lazy.'' and only those who overcome nature now and then ever get half way to the goal they have for themselves. iCoDyrlKht.l |