THE EDIBLE WILD ROOTS OF THE FARM 
“The sunshine floods the fertile fields 
Where shining seeds are sown, 
And lo, a miracle is wrought; 
For plants with leaves wind-blown, 
By magic of the sunbeam’s touch 
Take from the rain and dew 
And earth and air, the things of life 
To mingle them anew, 
And store them safe in guarding earth 
To meet man’s hunger-need. 
Then lo, the wonder grows complete; 
The germ within the seed 
Becomes a sermon or a song, 
A kiss or kindly deed.” 
—Dean Albert W. Smith. 
Nature sometimes caches_her stores of provisions—hides 
* . 
them underground. She puts them up in mold-proof 
packages, and stows them away in the earth, where, protected 
from sudden changes of temperature, they keep for along 
time. 
Fic. 32. Nature’s most 
efficient implement of 
tillage. But, alas! a 
little bit of metal ring 
thrust into the sensitive 
base of the ‘“rooter’’ 
renders this beautiful 
contrivanceinoperative, 
reduces the efficiency of 
his pigship to the com- 
mon level of mamma- 
lian kind, and leaves 
him endowed only with 
his appetite. 
It is chiefly a few of the mammals that are the reci- 
pients of this bounty—those that can 
burrow in the soil and those that can 
root. The burrowers are numerous, 
and of very different sorts. They all 
have stout claws on their fore feet. 
The rooters are few: only the pigs and 
their nearest allies. These have a most 
unique and beautiful digging apparatus, 
happily placed on the end of the nose, 
where it is backed by all the pushing 
power of a stout body, and where it is 
directed in its operations by the aid of 
very keen olfactories. This is a most 
efficient equipment for digging. If any- 
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