HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 195 



the beginning of summer; and of course the 

 corn has a hard fight for it through the rest of 

 the season against heavy grass and weeds. 

 There's no help for it with that manner of 

 treatment. If good farmers ever get hold of 

 that field, they'll have harder work reclaiming 

 it from the tenants' abuse than if they tackled 

 it quite in the rough. 



We've taken great pride in working out half 

 a dozen or more of those ugly waste places, 

 and in doing it we've learned to waggle our 

 fingers at all the hostile powers of earth and 

 air. The tenants on that cloddy field below, 

 if they're inclined that way, might easily be- 

 lieve that the gods are against them. The 

 crops they get ought to go far to confirm them. 

 What's that you say? No great harm in nurs- 

 ing that belief if it pleases them? Yes, but 

 there is, though. The man who thinks that 

 way is going to slacken his arm, and the gimp 

 will go out of his step, and his mind will lose 

 its bounce, and right in the middle of summer 

 he'll own himself beaten. I'll leave it to you 

 that that's no way. If there is any such thing 

 as a rule for good farming, it is that the time 

 never comes to relax effort to make something 

 out of a growing crop. 



