1 8 Next to the Ground 



sort of air-plant, drawing thence a store of 

 nitrogen, the most valuable of all plant foods. 

 It was a fine explanation — except for the 

 fact that it did not in the least explain how 

 the trick was done. Still, in one point the 

 wise men blundered upon fact — the fact 

 that clover fed the land through its roots 

 rather than its stalks or leaves or branches. 

 But the wise men took no sort of account of 

 some queer little knobs and bunches, found 

 upon clover roots, also upon those of its 

 cousins, the peas. Latterly it has been dis- 

 covered that the knobs and bunches do the 

 work. They are made up of beneficent bac- 

 teria, which attack and dissolve the elements 

 in the soil, thus rendering them fit for plant 

 food. 



Clover is even more an aristocrat than a 

 paradox. It will not grow save on land in 

 fairish condition. Thin soil, or sour, or badly 

 galled spots, it leaves to the peas, to rye, to 

 the miscalled Japan clover, which is not a 

 clover at all. Neither does it love a sandy 

 soil, though it will grow on it something lag- 

 gardly. Peas luxuriate in sand, and do not 

 disdain the thinnest crawfishy stretches. In- 

 deed they will flourish pretty well anywhere. 

 To say land "won't sprout black-eyed peas 

 without moving," is to express in the verna- 

 cular of Tennessee, the height and depth 



