Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1919 — Homely Hue of Immortal Grass Is More Enchanting Than the Lily or the Rose [ARTICLE]

Homely Hue of Immortal Grass Is More Enchanting Than the Lily or the Rose

Lying fn the sunshine amortg the buttercups and dandelions of 'slay. scarcely higher in intelligence than the minute tenants of that mimic wilderness. our earliest recollections are of grass; and when the fitful fever is ended and the foolish wrangle of the market and the forum is closed, grass heals over the scar which out descent Into the bosom of earth has made and the carpet of the infant becomes the blanket of the dead. Grass is the forgiveness of nature—her constant benediction. Fields tnmnpled with battle, saturated with blood, torn with the ruts-of eannon, grow green again with grass, and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by traffic become grass-grown like rural lanes and are obliterated.' Forests decgy, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is Ilamortal. Beleaguered by the sullen hosts of winter it withdraws into the impregnable fortress of its subterranean vitality and emerges upon the first solicitation of spring. Sown by the winds, by the wandering birds, propagated by the subtle agriculture of the elements, which are Its ministers and servants, it softens the rude outline of the world. It bears no blazonry of bloom or splendor, but its homely hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. It yields no fruit in earth or air, and yet, should its.harvest fail for a single year, famine would do-, populate the world. —John J. Ingallo-