94 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



man blunders! Under the sod of the mowing 

 land had burrowed the white grub of the June- 

 bugs. On the whole fourteen acres rested the 

 black shadow of an insect plague. Nature had 

 been interfered with and thwarted. Man had taken 

 things into his own clumsy hands. It should be 

 so no longer on these fourteen acres. I held the 

 deed to these, not for myself, nor for my heirs, 

 but for Nature. Over these few acres the winds 

 of heaven should blow free, the birds should sing, 

 the flowers should grow, and through the gloam- 

 ing, unharmed and unaffrighted, the useful skunk 

 should take his own sweet way. 



The preceding summer had been a season re- 

 markable for the ravages of the June-bug. The 

 turf in my mowing went all brown and dead sud- 

 denly in spite of frequent rains. No cause for the 

 trouble showed on the surface of the field. You 

 could start and with your hands roll up the tough 

 sod by the yard, as if a clean-cutting knife had 

 been run under it about an inch below the crowns. 

 It peeled off under your feet in great flakes. An 

 examination of the soil brought to light the big 

 fat grubs of the June-bugs, millions of the ghastly 

 monsters ! They had gone under the grass, eating 



