A Young Pine Tree And A Handful Of Soil

Chairman Kim Jong Il, with the ardent love for his motherland, valued all the wealth of the country and devoted his all to make it an ever-lasting wealth.

He had a warm love for the country as his inborn disposition, and instilled in the hearts of the Korean people the genuine love for their motherland, the love for every tree and every blade of grass.

Chairman Kim Jong Il said:

"Young people should love and take good care of their native villages, mountains and rivers and their workplaces and work hard to make them prosperous. This is a detailed expression of patriotism."

One day in September, Juche 55(1966), Chairman Kim Jong Il was giving field guidance to Chosan County. At early dawn, while looking round Angtho Village, he saw on one side of the road a bunch of fresh grass that seemed to have been cut a moment before.

He looked carefully at the bunch, then hurried to it and untied it; in the middle of the bundle was a young pine tree cut off its root.

The cut tree was as small as two spans. One of the farmers, ambitious to cut a bunch of grass in the early morning, had done it in haste, without noticing a young pine tree in the grass.

The great leader picked up and looked at it for a good while.

In a while, the officials rushed to him and, seeing the Chairman holding that young pine tree with its root cut off, did not know what to do or what to say.

The great leader said to the officials around him that he was very sorry to see this, that it would take several years for a pine tree to grow as small as this. He said in a mild voice that every tree and every blade of grass on the homeland is permeated with the blood of the revolutionary forerunners, and that only the person who values even a tree, a blade of grass or a stone of his or her motherland can be a true patriot.

Listening to what he said, the officials were deeply impressed with the profound truth of revolution that their love for the country is expressed in the love for all the wealth of the socialist country and that only those who live keeping deep in their hearts the warm love of their forerunners for even the trees and grass of unknown mountains and fields can be the true patriots.

Here is another story.

One day in autumn, Chairman Kim Jong Il was in his car on his way for another field guidance. He saw one edge of the soybean field near a brook washed away by rain. He stopped his care and went to the place. Looking carefully at what had happened, he said that land was the most valuable wealth of the country but he wondered how it could be treated in such a way.

After a while, he told his driver to go and bring the people responsible. Then he personally began to carry pebbles to fill the hollow. The driver told him in earnest not to do that but he, rather blaming him for not feeling painful at that, urged him to go.

Soon the farm officials came, and they were greatly embarrassed to see what the Chairman was doing. They confessed that they neglected that area because it was new land and was not included in the cultivation land of their farm.

The Chairman said that the loss of land was not because the area was neglected as non-cultivation land but because the farm members did not try to value even a handful of soil. He added that land is the most precious part of country's wealth, and everyone in our country is the owner of land.

Presently, the great leader said in good earnest that they did not know how precious a handful of soil was; the land of a country was made up of every handful of soil and the very land constituted the motherland; nothing in the world was more precious than the motherland.

He continued; if what little part of precious land was lost, we should be committing crimes before the revolutionary forerunners who had devoted their lives to their country.

The officials around looked up to him with deep emotion as he reminded them to take good care of even a handful of soil as part of precious wealth of the country.

Today, the warm love for homeland-every blade of grass, every tree and every handful of soil-is enshrined deep in the minds of all the Korean people; the love for the motherland that was taken back and liberated by President Kim Il Sung through hard and long bloody battles against the Japanese aggressors.