CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



the first sub silentio : it was stared at and stared at 

 again, as a sort of conjurer's trick which ' you couldn't 

 do again' Wise men shook their heads and held their 

 tongues at it. Nobody would have been at all sur- 

 prised if, on going to the field some fine morning, he 

 had found it altogether vanished, like faery money, 

 as quickly as it came : and as the roots swelled and 

 swelled into confirmed substance and reality through 

 September and October, the silence about it became 

 perfectly portentous. Reluctantly the hoers confessed 

 that they had not thinned it half enough ; and indeed 

 the loss, from that very common cause, was consider- 

 able. But where did the crop come from ? how did 

 it grow? by what means, short of the supernatural, 

 could a mere powder, however highly scented, sown by 

 the hand, produce this great fat thriving mass of roots 

 and leaves ? Surely it must at any rate be but a fraud 

 upon the laud after all ; and the next crop would show 

 the different results of real manure and a mere stimu- 

 lant. This was the point to which OPINION at last 

 settled down. 'We'll wait and see,' was the final 

 determination expressed : and over many and many a 

 farm in England and Scotland men did wait, and did 

 see. 



Of all the practical illustrations that ever appeared 



