GETTING INTO THE GROUND 29 



to help this poor ground, this newly graded shale, 

 to produce flowers and fruits and vegetables, can 

 now be handily placed on the land. This is an 

 excellent time for manure hauhng and spreading. 



When I faced the first spring on the barren 

 acres of Breeze Hill I did not at all realize thie 

 problem of fertilization, nor did I even know what 

 it meant to put humus in the ground. I bought 

 two or three two-horse loads of slightly rotted 

 stable manure, and thought I was well started ! 



Now I know that this hungry land, full of 

 wiUingness to work for me, cannot so work unless 

 it is fed, and well fed, and then fed some more. 

 So I am always on the lookout for manure, to be 

 taken any time I can get it, and to be piled for 

 rotting if it cannot be at once put on the land. 

 One spring the man I hired to do some plowing got 

 disgusted and quit because I insisted on having 

 him plow deeper than the three or four inches he 

 thought suflBcient, and because, as he expressed 

 it, "There ain't no sense in plowin' manure out 

 when I'm tryin' to plow it in!" He was getting 

 into contact with the covering of manure turned 

 under in the late fall, and which he thought 

 ought to be ample. 



I have heard various stories about putting too 

 much manure into the land, but I have never seen 



