From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, New York: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 72-73.
CATALOG TIME
Where now the winds of March are blowing
The garden sass will soon be growing.
My muse shall sing man’s yearly need
For onion sets and spinach seed,
Shall sing likewise that gay deceiver
Which stimulates our garden fever,
The subtle seedsman’s catalog
Whose charms our better judgment fog.
Its pictured beets and peas and chard
Were never grown in my back yard.
My radishes are not so red,
My punkins not so widely spread,
My lettuces refuse to head.
The seedsman is an optimist
And loves the brighter side, I wist.
He does not show in colored plate
The woolly worms that lie in wait.
No dark brown spots like mine are seen
On his prolific greenpod bean.
And yet, for planting all agog,
I love that yearly catalog.
I hail with joy each harmless fable
And plant new squashes for my table.
[73]
For though my cukes be bitter things,
My cabbage full of worms, by jings,
And all my snap beans full of strings,
Still to my heart the brown earth calls,
And all her summers, springs and falls,
Shall find my legs in overalls;
Shall fine me spading loam and sand
With seven blisters on each hand.