Word: plants
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Entering where even the KGB presumably fears to tread, agents reportedly managed to plant an eavesdropping bug in one high-level Pentagon office. They tapped and tape-recorded the telephones of two senior military-procurement officials: James Gaines, director for acquisition and congressional support for the Navy; and Victor Cohen, deputy for tactical warfare systems for the Air Force. They also tapped the home and office phones of an undisclosed number of people outside the Pentagon. NBC News reported that the investigators collected some 4,800 conversations over 290 days and that 671 of the talks contained incriminating statements...
Tebuthiuron, better known by the trade name Spike, is a herbicide used to get rid of mesquite from rangeland and brush from along utility power lines in the arid American Southwest. Made only by Eli Lilly, the giant Indianapolis chemical company, Spike attacks woody plants for up to three years. After searching for several years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture discovered that Spike not only kills weeds but may be the first effective herbicide against the hardy coca plant, the source of cocaine...
...question of whether to Spike or not to Spike puts Government antidrug crusaders, environmentalists and corporate America in an awkward three-way tug-of-war. Last week Sandra Marquardt of the environmental group Greenpeace accused the State Department of a "scorched-earth tactic that threatens to wipe out most plant life in the region for five years or more." Scientists for the Environmental Protection Agency say Tebuthiuron can harm useful vegetation if it leaches into groundwater. Ecologists contend that it would be difficult for farmers to grow crops after the coca has been destroyed. They point out that Spike...
...vast solid mass under one's hands, the thick, flat rotundity of the earth. Or perhaps the first real pleasure is a vision of possibilities. Three yellow roses might look good here; there's room for some tomatoes over there, or perhaps a row of asters. People planting their first plots tend to be too practical, determined to labor over beans and carrots that the local supermarket provides just as well and far more cheaply (exceptions: peas and raspberries). It is undeniably fun to feed oneself from one's harvest, but remember that gardening is not supposed to be practical...
...subtle but no less important, is the value of proportion, of balance, what the French call mesure. Ideally, any gardener would like to serve nature, to participate and share in her mysteries, but he soon learns that nature as such is a constant state of aggression and destruction. Each plant reseeds itself a hundred times too often, and each garden struggles to become a weed patch. When we first dig into a terrain that we plan to make a garden, we assume the role of philosopher-king. While we learn that we cannot conquer nature, we also learn that...