JARS v38n3 - The Land of Spec and Hyber

The Land of Spec and Hyber
E. White Smith, Tacoma, WA

In the east mountain land of Spec lived, many centuries ago a man named Rho. Rho lived in a nice cave with a southwest exposure and nice high trees out front. Now Rho had a hobby of studying and collecting the wonderful Rose Tree plants which grew in his land. He was always quite careful to collect only the best of each different kind and was often seen using the old inferior plants for fire wood. Rho looked at more than just the flowers of the Rose Tree plant. He often chose plants with wooly hair under the leaves, or some times with sharp bristles on the stems, buds and leaves. Rho also liked plants that did not grow like mad in all directions, thereby covering the paths his wife used in food gathering. Rho was not the only one collecting Rose Trees. There were lots of folks who lived in caves and some who even lived in trees or on the lakes who liked the Rose Trees and grew them.

In the next country to the west, which was a nice high, flat land, the people lived in mud huts. These folk, known as the Hybs, also collected and grew Rose Trees. This land was called Hyber. Rose Tree seed grew well in Hyber land and often times the new seed plants looked quite different from the plant from which the seed had come. The Hybs would take each new seed plant and give it a fancy name and a fine place to grow. They never burned Rose Tree wood but used black rock that they dug out of the ground. They even traded some of their Rose Tree seedlings to the people of Spec for food and other items. The Spec people took these seed plants home and grew them on, but more often than not after a few years these plants went into the cooking fire along with inferior native Rose Tree plants.

The final outcome of this story is that in the land of Hyber the roots of the Rose Tree plants grew so massed and the tops so tall and sweeping that all of the food plants died. The Hybs could not even dig up the black rocks for their fires. The people finally all died out or moved to the low lands where Rose Tree plants would not grow well. But in the land of Spec the Rose Tree plants were carefully selected by the collectors and never caused any harm but instead added much beauty to their homes and country side, at the same time providing good fire wood when needed. Whenever the people of Spec found any Rose Tree plant with bad growth habits or poor color, smell, or even root systems into the wood pile it went.