THE FERMENT 451 



stretched among the grass or flying back into the 

 holes like elastic suddenly released, as the tails twitch 

 them out of danger. 



This surely makes us anti- moles. Why allow them 

 to bring up the barren earth of underground and, at 

 the same time, destroy by thousands daily the worms 

 that will not only dig but fertilise ? But we have seen 

 that last week's mole-hill is not as to-day's. The air 

 has slaked the round clay lumps till the mould runs 

 through the fingers like coarse oatmeal. It must be 

 finer than that for the plants' sake, and finer it shall 

 be. Now that the spring airs are stirring we can find 

 the first handfuls of earth that powders in the fingers 

 to an impalpable, unclinging grease of fineness. The 

 most unimaginative must see that here is something 

 beyond mere mechanical fineness. It is chemical, or 

 shall we hasten conjecture and say biological ? The 

 soil has caught life from the sun, an annual new 

 creation that would stand for a new world from top to 

 bottom, even if all other existing forms should perish 

 in an instant. Here is the true irruptive principle 

 that gives the field measles, the spots of which shall 

 be buttercups and mauve lady's-smocks and red 

 ragged-robin and blue scabious and white moon-daisies 

 and purple prunella and the thousand other flowers of 

 May. 



Moles, one to the square lug, worms, one to the 

 square foot, bacteria, anything from a thousand million 

 to half a billion to the pound of soil ! In a few 

 hours they can grow from hundreds to millions and 

 billions. It is an incalculable saying, but something 

 to account faintly for the fact that the soil that was 

 yesterday lumps of clay is to-day alive. The roots of 



