A Gardener's Life
Walking down the road I fell in with L. who has a market garden and works as hard as he can almost every hour of daylight in the summer. He complained of a stiff back, for he had been working on his knees all day, but remarked that he was thankful he had had water laid on. In previous years he had found water supply a problem and he had been forced to dam a ditch, which had brought him into conflict with neighbours, so important is water when a few days of dry weather come along. " I've discovered over the years," he said, " that if my strawberries do well something gets my cabbage plants. If the cabbages thrive the onions fail to harden. If it's not the onions then there's fly at the carrots. If my back doesn't ache the weeds get up round my chest I " He laughed as he said it. He was not really complaining of the hardness of his lot, but making a joke about the things that sometimes daunt us all. The truth is that conditions that are perfect for one thing often prove fatal for another.
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