130 W/iat is Dirtl 



down before me, — " flowers ? 'Tis nothing but a bunch of dirt. How can 

 you see in such stuff a ray of beauty ? " 



" O grandpa ! how can you say this of my beautiful flowers ? Dirt, 

 indeed ! There was no dirt even where they grew. The conservatory was 

 as neat as this parlor. And this clean white and gilded paper — this you 

 would call dirt too, I suppose ? " 



" Certainly : nothing else." 



" Then I do wish that you would tell me what is dirt ! It was only ; 

 yesterday that you said of ma's nice white wheat-bread, 'Nothing but dirt.' 

 I never know when to think you in earnest, except when you read one of 

 those long lectures." 



" I will give you a practical demonstration some day." And thus we 

 parted, — she to carry her treasure where it would be admired, and not 

 called dirt ; and I to writing my lecture of " What is Dirt ? " 



In that, I asked some other young ladies, as well as their mothers, to 

 look at a sample of fine white flour which I had upon the table before me. 



Here it is : flour to-day ; it was dirt yesterday, — at least last year, — 

 black, rank, foul, odorous dirt, such as you complained of just now as 

 having been brought into the house, from the cow-yard, upon the boots of 

 the "dirty men." 



Yet that which was then offensive contains nearly all the elements 

 of this. What, then, is this white flour, or this fine loaf, but dirt ? If we 

 should grind this crystal goblet to an impalpable powder, and wet it with 

 this pure spring-water, and mix it with the flour, in that compound we 

 could grow wheat ; for then it would be dirt : now it is flour, water, and 

 crystal glass. 



And what is glass? — sand and a little potash. Disintegi-ated quartz, — 

 the hardest flint-rock, — glass in its unmanufactured condition. It is the < 

 substance that stiffens the wheat-straw with its coating of silex, — a silicate 

 of potash. 



Our supply of potash comes from the ashes of plants : they obtained 

 theirs from its natural source, — in the rocks, worn down, dissolved, ab- 

 sorbed, and stored up in all woody growth. When that decays, it is dirt, 

 — dirt that is convertible into food. It made this flour, this bread : it 

 can be reconverted from food to dirt, and food again, in one eternal round. 



