Feeding the Land 183 



currents of breaking spring; tossed down from the 

 dizzy sides of the gulf by frost and trickling stream. 

 Nature is still dissolving this immeasurable mass of 

 dead oysters, clams, and snails, creatures of the 

 dawn of time. Corals too in profusion, some like 

 long lily stems, some like horns of plenty, all 

 imbedded in the rock — hard, igneous rock, — the 

 fires of chaos and old night having imprisoned them 

 forever. No labor of sun or rain can now dissolve 

 these corals, or free them from the embrace of flint 

 and sard. But the inexhaustible heaps of shell are 

 plant-food for ages to come, so long as the Valley 

 can be the seat of life. , Sixty millions of years, yes, 

 for a hundred millions has Nature been dissolving 

 these beautiful shells, each the sheath and skeleton 

 of a mollusk of yesterday*s yesterday. The pro- 

 cess is no speedier to-day in your cherry orchard 

 when you spread the lime. Scatter lime over your 

 fields and centuries hence Nature will still be at 

 work dissolving your lime and trying to make it 

 available for plant-food. 



If we reflect but for a moment we can under- 

 stand that any application of fertilizer we may 

 give the land must be inert until heat and moisture 

 and air, both above and below ground, have 

 broken down the fertilizer, pulverized it, changed 

 it into liquid and gas, and so made it fit for absorp- 

 tion by the delicate cells of the plant root. 



Soil-making consists then in putting on raw 

 material for plant-food, to be assimilated years, 

 centuries, perhaps ages hence; or, it has been put 



