Ploughing 7 



Tobacco gave out mainly the fragrance of 

 newly-turned earth the single ploughs were 

 just laying it by. The corn-fields smelled of 

 ripe tassels, a smell that is a sort of sublima- 

 tion of new-mown hay. Still it was not quite 

 so delicate as the scent of the wheat-stubble, 

 where the young clover was just well in bloom. 

 In a week the young clover would hide the 

 stubble entirely. Already there was but the 

 faintest suffusion of yellow underneath its gray- 

 ish green. 



The new clover did not look or smell like 

 that which grew in the fallow land. Its 

 leaves were not only grayer, but more alive- 

 looking than even those of the aftermath, in 

 the end that had been fenced off for mowing. 

 The aftermath stood mid-leg high, and was 

 not gray at all, except when dew-beads shim- 

 mered around the edges of every leaf, or a 

 low wind lifted them delicately to show their 

 silvery undersides. The fence had been taken 

 away, so the whole spread might be broken 

 in one land, except across the other end where 

 the clover winter-killed so badly it had been 

 ploughed up, and sowed with peas in the 

 spring. 



There would be a turn-row between the 

 peas and the clover, that is to say, a strip of 

 ground left unbroken, and unseeded. The 

 draw-bars were at one end of it. At the 



