68 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FAKM. 



was sown, it went off from the first sub silentio : it 

 was stared at, and stared at still, as a sort of con- 

 jurer'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 surprised if, on going 

 to the field some fine morning, he had found it alto- 

 gether vanished, like a faery-gift, as quickly as it 

 came : and as the roots swelled and swelled into con- 

 firmed substance and reality through September and 

 October, the silence about it became perfectly por- 

 tentous. Reluctantly the hoers confessed that they 

 had not thinned it half enough ; and indeed the loss, 

 from that very common cause, was considerable. 

 But where did the crop come from? how did it 

 grow ? by what means, short of the supernatural, 1 

 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 land after all ; and the next crop 

 would show the different results of real manure and 

 a mere stimulant This was the point to which 

 OPINION at last settled down. f 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. 



