e flock. In
the winter the down is left to the hares and fieldfares. It has just
as long a period of absolute idleness as the arable and pasture
land, and when in work the yield is so very, very small.

After all, the very deepest ploughing is but scratching the surface.
The earth at five feet beneath the level has not been disturbed for
countless centuries. Nor would it pay to turn up this subsoil over
large areas, for it is nothing but clay, as many a man has found to
his cost who, in the hope of a heavier crop, has dug up his garden
half a spade deeper than usual. But when the soil really is good at
that depth, we cannot get at it so as to turn it to practical
account. The thin stratum of artificial manure which is sown is no
more in comparison than a single shower after a drought of months;
yet to sow too much would destroy the effect. No blame, then, falls
upon the agriculturist, who is only too anxious to get a larger
produce. It is useless charging him with incompetency. What
countless experiments have been tried to increase the crop: to see
if some new system cannot be introduced! With all its progress, how
little real advance has agriculture made! All because of the
stubborn, idle earth. Will not science some day come to our aid, and
show how two crops or three may be grown in our short summers; or
how we may even overcome the chill hand of winter? Science has got
as far as this: it recognizes the enormous latent forces surrounding
us--electricity, magnetism; some day, perhaps, it may be able to
utilize them. It recognizes the truly overwhelming amount of force
which the sun of summer pours down upon our fields, and of which we
really make no use. To recognize the existence of a power is the
first step towards employing it. Till it was granted that there was
a power in steam the locomotive was impossible.

It would be easy to swell this notice of idle earth by bringing in
all the waste lands, now doing nothing--the parks, deer forests, and
so on. But that is not to the purpose. If the wastes were reclaimed
and the parks ploughed up, that would in nowise solve the problem
how to make the cultivated earth more busy. It is no use for a man
who has a garden to lean on his spade, look over his boundary wall,
and say, 'Ah, if neighbour Brown would but dig up his broad green
paths how many more potatoes he would grow!' That would not increase
the produce of the critic's garden by one single cabbage. Certainly
it is