Hal Borland Quotes

Where grows?--where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil.

The life of the earth comes up with a rush in the springtime. All the wild seeds of weed and thistle, the sprouts of vine and bush and tree, are trying to take the fields. Farmers must fight them with harrow and plow and hoe; they must plant the good seeds quickly.

Where soil is, men grow, Whether to weeds or flowers.

It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn.

The miracle of the seed and the soil is not available by affirmation; it is only available by labor.

Creating the record is like digging up the earth, planting your seeds and waiting to see what happens.

Weeding is as necessary to agriculture as sowing.

The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.

Where the plow does not go and the seed is not sown, the weeds are sure to multiply.

Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants at tree, is more than all.

Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of the dirt.

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.

Literally, if someone says I am grounded, everyday I am at home, I actually have my hands in the ground and dirt under my fingernails. I don't have a staff to do it all for me. I still plant a seed and I'm amazed it grows.

Agriculture drives most people crazy. It keeps me sane.

I know more about wheat and olive trees than I do about politics.

Talking about pumpkins doesn't make them grow.

The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature.

Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net. For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.

Farmers are patient men. They got to be. Got to see those seeds come up week by week, fraction by fraction, and sweat it out for some days not knowing yet is it weeds or vegetables.

Now seeds are just dimes to the man in the store And the dimes are the things that he needs, And I've been to buy them in seasons before But have thought of them merely as seeds; But it flashed through my mind as I took them this time, "You purchased a miracle here for a dime."

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.

I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus.

Toward seven o'clock every morning, I leave my study and step Out on the bright terrace; the sun already burns resplendent Between the shadows of the fig tree, makes the low wall of coarse Granite warm to the touch. Here my tools lie ready and waiting, Each one an intimate, an ally: the round basket for weeds: The zappetta, the small hoe with a short haft . . . There's a rake here as well, at at times a mattock and spade, Or two watering cans filled with water warmed by the sun. With my basket and small hoe in hand, facing the sun, I Go out for my morning walk.

Seeds must be sown everywhere. Only some will bear fruit. But there would not be the fruit from the few had the many not been sown

To cultivate a garden is. . . to go hand in hand with Nature in some of her most beautiful processes.