The Ragged Month ■ 77 



and saves the field-drift, leaves, weed-stems, 

 dead insects, every sort of flotsam, for the 

 strengthening of the land. Best of all, it 

 keeps the soil itself receptive. How impor- 

 tant that is, may be gathered from the fact 

 that the richest manure is almost worthless if 

 left to dry and leach out on hard ground in 

 sunshine and rain. There have been men, 

 indeed, who declared that air was the one all- 

 sufficient fertilizer for any land in fair condi- 

 tion-. They advocated cultivating the whole 

 surface but taking crops from but half of it, 

 planting strips of it alternately upon alternate 

 years. Sedge works along their lines, but 

 makes haste much more slowly. 



Rotting is only 'slow combustion. Decay 

 or fire, the end alike is ashes. Ashes quicken 

 and hearten whatever ground they fall on. 

 Joe was glad he could kick them up in stifling 

 clouds wherever he stepped. He looked over 

 the blackened earth set thick with red winking 

 points, and smiled to think of next year's crop ; 

 yet, in almost the same breath, he sighed. 

 Somehow he had loved the tangle better than 

 the smooth home fields. All the wild things 

 were his friends — even the pushing sassafras. 

 He had shot his first rabbit there, and caught 

 his first trapful of birds. It had never been 

 like the crawfishy strip, sombre, savage, thorny, 

 but an elfin solitude, full of tricksy surprises. 



