omething
more than germinating seeds from a plant, he must remove it from the
crowded clump, give it more light and air, _and feed it for product_. In
other words, he must give it more nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash
than it can use for simple growth and maintenance, and thus make it
burst forth into flower-or fruit-product. Nature produces the apple
tree, but man must cultivate it and feed it if he would be fed and
comforted by it. People who neglect their orchards can get neither
pleasure nor profit from them, and such persons are not competent to sit
in judgment upon the value of an apple tree. Only those who love,
nourish, and profit by their orchards may come into the apple court and
speak with authority.

CHAPTER XL

THE TIMOTHY HARVEST

On Friday, the 25th, the children came home from their schools, and with
them came Jim Jarvis to spend the summer holidays. Our invitation to
Jarvis had been unanimous when he bade us good-by in the winter. Jack
was his chum, Polly had adopted him, I took to him from the first, and
Jane, in her shy way, admired him greatly. The boys took to farm life
like ducks to water. They were hot for any kind of work, and hot, too,
from all kinds. I could not offer anything congenial until the timothy
harvest in July. When this was on, they were happy and useful at the
same time,--a rare combination for boys.

The timothy harvest is attractive to all, and it would be hard to find a
form of labor which contributes more to the aesthetic sense than does the
gathering of this fragrant grass. At four o'clock on a fine morning,
with the barometer "set fair," Thompson started the mower, and kept it
humming until 6.30, when Zeb, with a fresh team, relieved him. Zeb tried
to cut a little faster than his father, but he was allowed no more
time. Promptly at nine he was called in, and there was to be no more
cutting that day. At eleven o'clock the tedder was started, and in two
hours the cut grass had been turned. At three o'clock the rake gathered
it into windrows, from which it was rolled and piled into heaps, or
cocks, of six hundred or eight hundred pounds each. The cutting of the
morning was in safe bunches before the dew fell, there to go through the
process of sweating until ten o'clock the next day. It was then opened
and fluffed out for four hours, after which all hands and all teams
turned to and hauled it into the forage barn.

The grass that was cut one morning was safely