30 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



having a dry surface two inches deep, leaving the 

 furrow, and about a yard on each side of it, as the 

 perpetual channel or bed for water or ice in the win- 

 ter, and baked sterility in the summer ; that if any- 

 body dares to mention to you anything about that 

 mysterious abomination called THE SUBSOIL, you 

 are to screw up your mouth, shake your head, and 

 say 



' It won't do to bring up that nasty stuff! ' 

 * But don't Gardeners do it sometimes ? ' I one 

 day ventured to ask with child-like simplicity, in 

 reply to the established doctrine. 



' That's a different thing ; Gardeners aren't " prac- 

 tical farmers." ' 



' But don't THE ROOTS OF PLANTS GROW DOWN- 

 WARDS in a Field, as well as in a Garden ? ' 



I don't know how it was, but that provoking ques- 

 tion always brought the conversation to an abrupt 

 close. I never could get beyond it. It stuck in my 

 throat and everybody's else, like Macbeth's Amen. 

 Left alone at last to my own ignorance, I dropped 

 deeper and deeper, day after day, into a state of con- 

 firmed Theory. I got strange notions into my head, 

 that, as two negatives make an affirmative, perhaps 

 two bad soils might make one good one, and three 



