, how often, where, why; each quotation concerning it in the whole
book, every abstract reference, why made, by whom, and what it meant.
Then slowly dawned the sane and true things said of birds in the Bible
compared with the amazing statements of Aristotle, Aristophanes, Pliny,
and other writers of about the same period in pagan nations. This led
to a search for the dawn of bird history and for the very first
pictures preserved of them. On this book the author expended more work
than on any other she has ever written.

In 1911 two more books for which Mrs. Porter had gathered material for
long periods came to a conclusion on the same date: "Music of the Wild"
and "The Harvester." The latter of these was a nature novel; the other
a frank nature book, filled with all outdoors--a special study of the
sounds one hears in fields and forests, and photographic reproductions
of the musicians and their instruments.

The idea of "The Harvester" was suggested to the author by an editor
who wanted a magazine article, with human interest in it, about the
ginseng diggers in her part of the country. Mr. Porter had bought
ginseng for years for a drug store he owned; there were several people
he knew still gathering it for market, and growing it was becoming a
good business all over the country. Mrs. Porter learned from the United
States Pharmacopaeia and from various other sources that the drug was
used mostly by the Chinese, and with a wholly mistaken idea of its
properties. The strongest thing any medical work will say for ginseng
is that it is "A VERY MILD AND SOOTHING DRUG." It seems that the
Chinese buy and use it in enormous quantities, in the belief that it is
a remedy for almost every disease to which humanity is heir; that it
will prolong life, and that it is a wonderful stimulant. Ancient
medical works make this statement, laying special emphasis upon its
stimulating qualities. The drug does none of these things. Instead of
being a stimulant, it comes closer to a sedative. This investigation
set the author on the search for other herbs that now are or might be
grown as an occupation. Then came the idea of a man who should grow
these drugs professionally, and of the sick girl healed by them. "I
could have gone to work and started a drug farm myself," remarks Mrs.
Porter, "with exactly the same profit and success as the Harvester. I
wrote primarily to state that to my personal knowledge, clean, loving
men still exist in this