Archy and Mehitabel predicted Global Warming

If you’ve visited the farmstand you no doubt have met the inimitable Larry Hanks who, Monday through Friday, is a certified arborist and a bit of a bug man, you might say.  (He also enjoys a good ear of corn.)

Larry sent this writing from the characters Archy and Mehitabel, who were very popular in the early 20th century. I had been given a book of the writings of Don Marquis by my friend the late Minnie Pearl, who was also a big fan of the newspaper column.

It appears that before Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring," Archy beat her to the punch with this prescient commentary about what man was doing to the environment in the dawn of the industrial age. I hope you will take the time to read it and pass it along to your friends. sq

“OUT ON A LIMB”

Larry writes:

 Some years ago, while taking graduate Entomology classes at the University of Kentucky, I was introduced to some writings from early 1916.   These writings are the genius of Don Marquis and were regularly published in the “Sun Dial” column of the New York Sun.  The characters created by Mr. Marquis were named Archy and Mehitabel.  Mehitabel was a female alley cat that was quite famous for her escapades within the city and several places abroad.  Archy was a cockroach that lived in the “bosses” office and took the liberty of using the typewriter to put his ideas on paper. Archy was an accomplished typist but had one big problem, his anatomy was such that he could not reach the shift key to capitalize or use any feature of the uppercase.  Therefore, all of Archy’s writings were prepared in lower case.  Following is one of my favorite “Archy” epistles taken from The Lives & Times of Archy and Mehitabel: 

                what the ants are saying
                                        
             dear boss i was talking with an ant the other day
             and he handed me a lot of
             gossip which ants the world around
             are chewing over among themselves

             i pass it on to you
             in the hope that you may relay it to other
             human beings and hurt their feelings with it
             no insect likes human beings
             and if you think you can see why
             the only reason i tolerate you is because
             you seem less human to me than most of them
             here is what the ants are saying

             it wont be long now it wont be long
             man is making deserts of the earth
             it wont be long now
             before man will have used it up
             so that nothing but ants
             and centipedes and scorpions
             can find a living on it
             man has oppressed us for a million years
             but he goes on steadily
             cutting the ground from under
             his own feet making deserts deserts deserts

             we ants remember
             and have it all recorded
             in our tribal lore
             when gobi was a paradise
             swarming with men and rich
             in human prosperity
             it is a desert now and the home
             of scorpions ants and centipedes

             what man calls civilization
             always results in deserts
             man is never on the square
             he uses up the fat and greenery of the earth
             each generation wastes a little more
             of the future with greed and lust for riches

             north africa was once a garden spot
             and then came carthage and rome
             and despoiled the storehouse
             and now you have sahara
             sahara ants and centipedes

             toltecs and aztecs had a mighty
             civilization on this continent
             but they robbed the soil and wasted nature
             and now you have deserts scorpions ants and centipedes
             and the deserts of the near east
             followed egypt and babylon and assyria
             and persia and rome and the turk
             the ant is the inheritor of tamerlane
             and the scorpion succeeds the caesars

             america was once a paradise
             of timberland and stream
             but it is dying because of the greed
             and money lust of a thousand little kings
             who slashed the timber all to hell
             and would not be controlled
             and changed the climate
             and stole the rainfall from posterity
             and it wont be long now
             it wont be long
             till everything is desert
             from the alleghenies to the rockies
             the deserts are coming
             the deserts are spreading
             the springs and streams are drying up
             one day the mississippi itself
             will be a bed of sand
             ants and scorpions and centipedes
             shall inherit the earth

             men talk money and industry
             of hard times and recoveries
             of finance and economics
             but the ants wait and the scorpions wait
             for while men talk they are making deserts all the time
             getting the world ready for the conquering ant
             drought and erosion and desert
             because men cannot learn

             rainfall passing off in flood and freshet
             and carrying good soil with it
             because there are no longer forests
             to withhold the water in the
             billion meticulations of the roots

             it wont be long now it wont be long
             till earth is barren as the moon
             and sapless as a mumbled bone

             dear boss i relay this information
             without any fear that humanity
             will take warning and reform

                            archy

It appears that Archy was right about humanity not taking the warning and reform.  It has been almost 90 years since this column was printed and the devastation continues at a mind boggling pace.
             
Larry Hanks is an American Society of Consulting Arborists (ASCA) Registered Consulting Arborist and International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) Certified Arborist.  Questions, suggestions or comments are welcomed at .