THE FERMENT 



" THE field has got the measles ! " cries a small girl just 

 recovering from the popular spring complaint. She is 

 right, for it has broken out everywhere into an irrup- 

 tion of mole-hills. We have been able to mark for 

 weeks the industry of that underground population, 

 as street after street has been added to the labyrinth 

 beneath the grass. You can see the dry and fine- 

 grained heaps that were thrown up last week, and can 

 trace the row through degrees of increasing freshness 

 till, if you are quiet, you can see in the freshest of all 

 the sausage of clay squeezing from the crown and 

 tumbling lazily down the side of the " wunt-heave." 

 Out little dog, Guess, knows the sign well enough, 

 and can even catch the " wunt " himself, the microbe 

 of the field's measles which some farmers think of 

 with unreasoned abhorrence, and others with un- 

 reasoned kindliness. The anti-moles begrudge the 

 labour of scattering the heaps, while the pro-moles 

 rejoice to think that the number of worms is being 

 kept down. In truth, the moles and the worms are 

 rivals in the same good work of aerating, pulverising, 

 and thus fertilising the soil. 



The worms, as is well known, cultivate on a vastly 

 greater scale than the moles. We have to look closer 

 29 449 



