VII 

 THE FRIENDLY SOIL 



I NEVER tire of contemplating the soil itself, the 

 mantle rock, as the geologist calls it. It clothes 

 the rocky framework of the earth as the flesh clothes 

 our bones. It is the seat of the vitality of the globe, 

 the youngest part, the growing, changing part. Out 

 of it we came, and to it we return. It is literally our 

 mother, as the sun is our father. 



The soil ! — the residuum of the rocks, the ashes of 

 the mountains. We know what a vast stretch of 

 time has gone to the making of it; that it has been 

 baked and boiled and frozen and thawed, acted 

 upon by sun and star and wind and rain; mixed and 

 remixed and kneaded and added to, as the house- 

 wife kneads and moulds her bread; that it has lain 

 under the seas in the stratified rocks for incalculable 

 ages; that chemical and mechanical and vital forces 

 have all had a hand in its preparation; that the vast 

 cycles of animal and vegetable life of the foreworld 

 have contributed to its fertility; that the life of the 

 sea, and the monsters of the earth, and the dragons 

 of the air, have left their ashes here, so that when I 

 stir it with my hoe, or turn it with my spade, I know 



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