HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 255 



The plants grew, of course; but they grew into 

 tall, lean rods, with just a few drooping leaves 

 scattered up and down. The chickens would 

 pick at them inquiringly and turn away to eat 

 grass. We didn't try to eat them ourselves. 



I tried that feeding, too, with others of the 

 vegetables. The tomato vines responded 

 pretty well in vigor of growth, but the fruits 

 were mostly small and misshapen. The peas 

 came along tolerably, but they weren't as good 

 as we'd been used to. We had used the last 

 winter's wood ashes freely on this plot, along 

 with the nitrate ; but our stuff was a long way 

 from being up to the mark. 



The trouble was that our soil was dead, as 

 dead as though we'd brought it from the bot- 

 tom of a well. The vitality had been sapped 

 out of it. No normal, living process was going 

 on beneath the surface. Decay of old life had 

 stopped because there was no old life there to 

 decay and decay must go hand in hand with 

 life. I might almost as well have applied my 

 soda nitrate upon a bed of brickdust, expect- 

 ing it to produce good garden truck. 



The use of chemical fertilizer in such a case 

 is just an attempt to make a short cut on Na- 

 ture. Instead of getting a successful short 



