62 Field-Labourers 



animal or vegetable, but chiefly vegetable ; and this is 

 true even of such as seem to consist only of sand, clay, 

 or chalk. For wherever it is possible for a plant to 

 grow at all, thither something suited to the situation 

 is sure to find its way. The wild crop may be a very 

 poor one, perhaps only some coarse, wiry kind of 

 grass — for there is hardly any soil so poor but that 

 grass of some kind will grow in it — and when this has 

 improved the soil a little, other better sorts may 

 follow. 



The Black earth is of a very dark colour even when 

 dry ; but it is not always so easy as in this case to 

 judge of a soil by its appearance. Sometimes the 

 organic matter, being only imperfectly decayed, may 

 be visible enough ; sometimes it may be reduced to a 

 fine brown powder ; in some cases it may have more 

 or less entirely lost its colour ; and then, again, it 

 may be so thoroughly decayed as to be even soluble 

 in water. 



Whether visible or not, however, there it surely is in 

 every soil, in larger or smaller quantities. 



But it is the effect of animal life that we are now to 

 look at. Animals, large and small, benefit the land by 

 manuring it ; but this is so obvious a benefit that we 

 need not dwell upon it further than to remark that 

 coprolites — the fossilized droppings and bones of 

 animals of former ages — and guano, the droppings of 

 birds, are among the most valuable manures which the 

 farmer can use, and where they are not to be had upon 

 the spot he finds it worth his while to bring them from 

 a distance. When, therefore, we consider the abundant 

 animal life which for ages occupied many of the lands 

 now brought under the plough, we can understand one 



