II 



THE BLADE THE EARTHE FULL 

 CORN 



IT was on the twenty-second day from sowing that 

 I paused in some gardening one evening to notice 

 that my summer-fallow field was flecked with bright 

 green wheat-blades ; then came early rain, and it 

 raced ahead. Only here and there the regular lines 

 were inclined to run out of form in places it was 

 strangely over-luxuriant. 



" Your wheat is well forward," said my neighbour, 

 " but very over-thick here and there. It seems to 

 me that the seeder has been playing you false. It 

 looks as though it had become choked, and then 

 discharged the blocked seed with a flush directly 

 the tube was clear. That, or other seed sprouting 

 which wasn't sown this year." 



Guy Mazey passed by : " The wheat's coming 

 up fine," he said, " but some of it has been sowed 

 too thick I guess. I always have one or two of my 

 youngsters walk behind the seeder all the time. 

 Then if a tube gets choked we clean it straight 

 away." 



I was trying to work the farm with as little help 

 as possible that year ; all the land was sown, there 

 were only about thirty acres of summer-fallow land 

 to plough, which would not take Roddy McMahon 



378 



