Part 8 (1/2)

HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY

What have burrowing animals to do with the drainage system of the land? (Keffer's ”Nature Studies on the Farm.”)

How do angleworms help drain the soil?

How do the forests help make good use of the rain that falls, not only for themselves but for the rest of us?

How do the rains help to warm the ground in the spring? The heat they carry into the soil is produced in two ways. The book mentioned above tells of one of these ways, and Russell's little book, ”The Story of the Soil,” tells of another.

Beale's ”Seed Dispersal” tells how the raindrops (working together, of course) help plant maple, elm, sycamore, willow, and other trees that grow by the waterside, to scatter their seeds.

You'd be surprised what a series of adventures the seeds of a bladderwort have before they get planted on some new sh.o.r.e, after having left the parent shrub. First, they float down-stream, as you know, but when autumn comes on, what do you suppose they do? They go to bed. Where? Right in the bottom of the stream. Then how do they ever get up and get planted on the sh.o.r.e? Well, you just look it up in that Beale book and see.

Do you know how the rains help to get the mineral food up into the plant?

And why swamps are such poor producers?

And how the sun acts as a pump for the plant world?

You will find answers to all these questions in Shaler's ”Outlines of Earth's History” and in your books on botany and agriculture.

Russell's book on the soil tells how the ancient Gauls and Britons used to fertilize their land with marl, and how the tides help to fertilize England. It's just the reverse of the way Father Nile looks after Egypt, as you will see.

If you want to read an interesting description of the difficulties of farming on wet lands, you will find it in this meaty little book.

If you don't know how serious a thing it is to let gullies form in land, look it up in Shaler's ”Man and the Earth” and you will see.

How do you suppose deserts that get so little rain themselves could _help make it rain_ in other places? For example, the desert of Thibet is the chief cause of the monsoon rains that do so much for India. That part of your geography that explains the circulation of the air will help you figure this out; particularly with a map under your eye that shows the relative location of the desert and the Indian Ocean, over which the monsoon winds blow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN EXAMPLE OF MAN'S DEBT TO THE EARTHWORM

Much of the earth's Maytime bloom and beauty is due to the labor of our humble little brother of the dust, the earthworm; a striking fact which was never recognized until the great Charles Darwin looked into the matter and wrote a book about him. This picture by Millet is called ”Springtime” and hangs in the Louvre, in Paris.]

CHAPTER V

(MAY)

It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures.

--_Darwin: ”The Formation of Vegetable Mould.”_

WHAT THE EARTH OWES TO THE EARTHWORM

Suppose father had a hired hand who would plough his fields, fertilize them at his own expense, build his own house, board himself, and for all this ask only the privilege of living on the place, studying Botany, Geology, and Geometry, and enjoying the scenery.

”Where can I get a man like that?” I imagine father saying.