Feeding the Land 197 



supply her household. While doubtless in nature 

 nothing is actually wasted — that is, completely de- 

 stroyed and eliminated from our universe, the ig- 

 norant fruit-grower may put what he imagines is 

 fertilizer on his land and realize no benefits. Each 

 after its kind is the law. He may feed for tree- 

 growth and starve for fruit-growth. In other 

 words, his dietary may not be at all adapted to 

 his fruit-farm. 



I have heard vineyardists declare that were they 

 to be offered as a gift enough barnyard manure 

 to cover their vineyards a foot thick, and it were 

 delivered and spread, they would decline the offer. 

 I have heard another say that he would not accept 

 as a gift a foot depth of commercial fertilizer on his 

 vineyard but would prefer even a light application 

 of barnyard manure. A third has shown me his 

 vineyard on which he said that for eleven years 

 he had not put a spoonful of fertilizer of any kind, 

 and that he declined six hundred dollars an acre 

 for it. A few years later he died and the land was 

 sold by the heirs for slightly more than half this 

 rate, the apparent fall in price being caused not by 

 any asserted deterioration of the land but because 

 the heirs did not care to have a vineyard. But 

 nevertheless this ''spoonless*' vineyard had not 

 maintained its original record for production; it 

 had fallen off in eleven years of starvation some 

 ll fifty-three per cent. One of the vineyardists who 

 so roundly rejected, or would reject, barnyard 

 manure, lately informed me that his vines were 



