CHAPTER VI 



FIELD-LABORERS 



The field-laborers whose work we are going first to 

 look at are somewhat rough in their ways, it must be 

 confessed, and not such as the farmer generally cares to 

 see at work upon his land. For when he has taken pos- 

 session of the beds of soft earth ready prepared for him, 

 his plows and harrows come in very usefully, and he is of 

 opinion that he can manage the tillage of his fields himself. 



Nature, however, has no steel plows, and her fields must 

 be tilled by other means, for they need it as well as the 

 farmer's. And her laborers work in all parts of the farm, 

 giving man a vast amount of help, for which he is often 

 not as grateful as he might be, for he and they do not at 

 present understand one another; and though he may tame 

 a lion he cannot control a worm. 



No soil is really fertile, whatever the mineral matter 

 composing it, unless it also contain some amount of 

 organic matter — matter derived from organized, living 

 things, whether animal or vegetable. Organic matter 

 alone, is not enough to make a fertile soil; but with less 

 than one-half per cent of organic matter, no soil can be 

 cultivated to much purpose. Even with this quantity it 

 will not grow corn of any kind successfully, but it will 

 grow wild crops with less; and these in time add what is 

 required, if they are let alone for many generations. The 

 black earth of Russia, which is jet black when wet and 



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