212 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



rain has come, of course; but its delay hasn't 

 hurt our corn a nickel's worth. 



It's very different on some of the farms 

 around us. Yesterday morning, before the 

 rain began, I looked at two fields that were 

 planted when we planted ours. Both those 

 fields have been badly hurt by the drought; 

 the plants are not more than half the height 

 of ours, and their leaves are sun-dried, pale 

 and sick. With the best of care for the rest 

 of the season that corn won't make half a nor- 

 mal crop. 



The reason? That land was plowed only 

 about four inches deep, and the subsoil wasn't 

 touched. Cultivation was abandoned two 

 weeks ago because the teams couldn't pull a 

 "double shovel" through the sun-hardened 

 soil; so the fields are foul with weeds. The 

 weeds have drawn heavily upon the little mois- 

 ture that was stored, and the loss by evapora- 

 tion has been great. On the contrary, we have 

 kept the cultivators going steadily every day 

 of those five dry weeks, stirring the surface 

 into a fine, shallow dust mulch to cover our 

 foot-deep seed bed. On the hottest day of the 

 drought if the mulch were kicked aside the soil 

 beneath appeared black with abundant mois- 



