CROPS AND PROFITS 



rooted up, or combed and pruned into more 

 promising shape. Ten-acre fields, trim and 

 true, are distributed over the meadow land, 

 and each, for the most part, has its single en- 

 grossing crop. 



As I look out from my library window to- 

 day — and the learned reader may guess the 

 month from my description — I see one field 

 reddened with the lusty bloom of clover, which 

 stands trembling in its ranks, and which I 

 greatly fear will be doubled on its knees with 

 the first rain storm ; another shows the yellow- 

 ish waving green of full-grown rye, swaying 

 and dimpling, and drifting as the idle winds 

 will ; another is half in barley and half in oats 

 — a bristling green beard upon the first, the 

 oats just flinging out their fleecy, feathery 

 tufts of blossom; upon another field, are deep 

 dark lines beneath which, in September, there 

 are fair hopes of harvesting a thousand bushels 

 of potatoes; yet another, shows fine lines of 

 growing corn, and a brown area, where a 

 closer look would reveal the delicate growth 

 of fresh-starting carrots and mangel. All the 

 rest in waving grass; not so clean as could be 

 wished, for I see tawny stains of blossoming 

 sorrel, and fields whitened like a sheet, with 

 daisies. 



137 



