I do not believe that any one who has not worked in a garden can begin to understand how much pleasure and strength of body and mind and soul can be derived from one's garden, no matter how small it may be, and often the smaller it is the better. If the garden be ever so limited in area, one may still have the gratifying experience of learning how much can be produced on a little plot carefully laid out, thoroughly fertilised, and intelligently cultivated. And then, though the garden may be small, if the flowers and vegetables prosper, there springs up a feeling of kinship between the man and his plants, as he tends and watches the growth of each individual fruition from day to day. Every morning brings some fresh development, born of the rain, the dew, and the sunshine.
The letter or the address you began writing the day before never grows until you return and take up the work where it was left off; not so with the plant. Some change has taken place during the night, in the appearance of bud, or blossom, or fruit. This sense of newness, of expectancy, brings to me a daily inspiration whose sympathetic significance it is impossible to convey in words.
It is not only a pleasure to grow vegetables for one's table, but I find much satisfaction, also, in sending selections of the best specimens to some neighbour whose garden is backward, or to one who has not learned the art of raising the finest or the earliest varieties, and who is therefore surprised to receive new potatoes two weeks in advance of any one else.
When I am at my home in Tuskegee, I am able, by rising early in the morning, to spend at least half an hour in my garden, or with my fowls, pigs, or cows. Whenever I can take the time, I like to hunt for the new eggs each morning myself, and when at home I am selfish enough to permit no one else to make these discoveries. As with the growing plants, there is a sense of freshness and restfulness in the finding and handling of newly laid eggs that is delightful to me. Both the anticipation and the realisation are most pleasing. I begin the day by seeing how many eggs I can find, or how many little chickens are just beginning to peep through the shells.
Speaking of little chickens coming into life reminds me that one of our students called my attention to a fact connected with the chickens owned by the school which I had not previously known. When some of the first little chickens came out of their shells, they began almost immediately to help others, not so forward, to break their way out. It was delightful to me to hear that the chickens raised at the school had, so early in life, caught the Tuskegee spirit of helpfulness toward others.
When at Tuskegee I Find a Way by Rising Early in the Morning to Spend Half an Hour in My
Garden or with the Live Stock
I am deeply interested in the different kinds of fowls, and, aside from the large number grown by the school in its poultry house and yards, I grow at my own home common chickens, Plymouth Rocks, Buff Cochins, and Brahmas, Peking ducks, and fantailed pigeons.
The pig, I think, is my favourite animal. In addition to some common-bred pigs, I keep a few Berkshires and some Poland Chinas; and it is a pleasure to me to watch their development and increase from month to month. Practically all the pork used in my family is of my own raising.