96 THE FERTILITY OF THE SOIL [CH. 



Then the small fields had to be made into bigger 

 ones : hedges were grubbed up and the banks were 

 thrown down, much to the disgust of the local fox 

 hunters and rabbit shooters. 



Turnips were then sown — they had never pre- 

 viously been grown on the farm — and they were ferti- 

 lised with guano which was then just coming into the 

 country. This evoked much comment fi'om the local 

 wits, but the crop was magnificent, being far the 

 best in the countryside. "It was stared at and 

 stared at again, as a sort of conjuror's trick which 

 'You couldn't do again.' 'Wise men shook their 

 heads and held their tongues at it. Nobody would 

 have been at all surprised if, on going to the field 

 some fine morning, he had found it altogether 

 vanished, like faery money, as quickly as it came : 

 and as the roots swelled and swelled into confirmed 

 substance and reality through September and October, 

 the silence about it became perfectly portentous.... 

 Where did the crop come from ? How did it grow ?. . . 

 Surely it must at any rate be but a fraud upon the 

 land after all ; and the next crop would show the 

 different results of real manure and a mere stimulant. 

 This was the point to which opiiiion at last settled 

 down. * We'll wait and see ' was the final determina- 

 tion expressed." 



The big crop of turnips enabled sheep and cattle 

 to be kept, and their manure helped to enrich the 



