3 1 6 Next to the Ground 



prairies invited with land all but ready for the 

 plough. The bottoms were mostly still in 

 cultivation, but some upland stretches lay 

 out, and were swarded over with blue grass, 

 battling for root-hold against the ever-present 

 sedge. It was not so unequal a battle as it 

 looked. If the sedge was strong and flinty, 

 with feather-winged seed, the blue grass had 

 stay to match the best thorough-bred that 

 ever grazed on it. Moreover, it throve 

 under trampling, as sedge could not do. 

 Between them they managed to make the 

 old fields the assembly-place of cattle for 

 miles and miles about. 



One of the old fields had big gnarled 

 apple trees dotted over half of it. They 

 stood, some of them, four-square, and all of 

 them in such manner you could see they 

 were the remnant of orchard rows. They 

 did not bear much fruit, and what did form 

 was sour and apt to mildew ; but, for all that, 

 they bloomed royally as certain as the spring 

 came round. They had wide-spread droop- 

 ing branches, marked all along the under 

 edge, as high as cattle could reach, with dead 

 twigs killed by continuous cropping. Above 

 that the round heads were half-globes of 

 netted stems and leaves, so thick no sunray 

 pierced through even at the hottest high 

 noon. Cattle came to lie in the shade. 



