The Adventures of a Grain of Dust Part 26

Every Winter, with its frost and its storing up of moisture in the great snow-fields of the mountains, is a benefit to the lands and their people, but the Ice Age, "The Winter that Lasted All Summer,"[33] not only worked wonders in other ways, but was of far greater benefit to the soil because it was so much more of a Winter.

[33] "The Strange Adventures of a Pebble."

Mr. Shakespere, in his day, didn't know anything about an Ice Age, but Brer Bear might have quoted certain lines of his, just the same:

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingrat.i.tude.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thou dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot."[34]

[34] "As You Like It."

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_Courtesy of the Northern Pacific Railway_

ASTER GROWING IN VOLCANIC ASH ON MT. RANIER]

THE GREAT PLOUGHS OF THE ICE AGES

With all the work the other agencies do in changing the rock into soil, and fertilizing and refres.h.i.+ng it with additions from the subsoil, there still remains an important thing to be done, and that is to mix the soil from different kinds of rock. This is still done constantly by the winds and flowing waters, but every so often, apparently, there needs to be a deeper, wider stirring and mixing. This the great ice ploughs and glacial rivers of the Ice Ages did. And they do it every so often, probably; for there was more than one Ice Age in the past, and, as Nature's processes do not change, it is more than likely there will be more ice ages and more deep ploughing and redistribution of the soil in the future. As you will see, if you take the trouble to look it up in "The Strange Adventures of a Pebble," it is thought we may now be in the springtime of one of those vaster changes which bring Springs lasting for ages, followed by long Summers and Autumns, and by the age-long Winters and the big glaciers and all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOW THE MOUNTAINS FEED THE PLAINS

"The elevations of the earth's surface provide for it a perpetual renovation. The higher mountains suffer their summits to be broken into fragments and to be cast down in sheets of ma.s.sy rock, full of every substance necessary for the nourishment of plants, and each filtering thread of summer rain is bearing its own appointed burden of earth to be thrown down on the dingles below."]

The glaciers, moving over thousands of miles and often meeting and dumping their loads together on vast fields, did the very same thing for everybody that England does for herself to-day in bringing different kinds of fertilizers from all over the world to enrich her farms. I'm very glad to speak of this because the author of the story of the pebble may have left a bad impression of the glaciers--"The Old Men of the Mountain"--as farmers, by what he said about their carrying off the original farm lands of New England, and leaving a lot of pebbles and boulders instead. While these pebbles have not produced what you would call a brilliant performer among soils, they have made a good, steady soil that in New England has helped greatly in growing farm boys into famous men, while the pebbles of Wisconsin have been of immense service to her famous cows. In the counties in Wisconsin where there are plenty of pebbles scattered through the soil, the production of cheese and b.u.t.ter is something like 50 per cent greater than it is in regions where there are comparatively few pebbles.[35]

[35] Martin: "Physiography of Wisconsin."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From Tarr and Martin's "College Physiography." By permission of the Macmillan Company_

GOOD CROPS FROM NEW ENGLAND'S STONY FIELDS

While the stones, big and little, with which the fields of New England are so richly supplied have not produced what you would call a brilliant performer among soils, they have made a good steady soil that can turn its hand to almost anything, and that has helped greatly in growing farm boys into famous men. In building those stone fences, for example, the boys learned that it always pays to do your work well. A hundred years is merely the tick of a watch in the life of a fence like that!]

The soils of New England are like the New Englander himself, they can turn their hands to almost anything; raise any kind of crop suited to the climate, while richer soils are often not so versatile. The reason is that these pebbles were originally gathered by the glaciers from widely separated river-beds, and so contain all varieties of rock with every kind of plant food in them. It takes a long, long time to make soil out of bed-rock, but in the case of soils in which there are a great many pebbles it is different; and you can see why. On a great ma.s.s of rock there is comparatively little surface for the air and other pioneer soil-makers to get at, and so decay is slow; while the same amount of rock broken up into pebbles presents a great deal of surface for decay.

If you will examine with a gla.s.s--an ordinary hand-gla.s.s will do--one of these decaying pebbles lying embedded in the gra.s.s you can trace on it a number of wrinkly lines--sometimes even a network. These are the marks, the "finger-prints," of little roots. Little roots, as we have seen, are very wise. They always know what they are about, and the fact that they cling to the pebbles in this way means that they are getting food out of them.

And that's right where the cows of Wisconsin come in. The rootlets of the gra.s.ses get a steady supply of food from the decaying surfaces of these pebbles scattered through the pastures, and then pa.s.s it on to the cows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOW PEBBLES HELP FEED THE COWS

You'll think I'm joking at first, but it's the truth: _Pebbles are good for cows._ Otherwise how are you going to account for the fact that in the counties in Wisconsin where there are plenty of pebbles the production of cheese and b.u.t.ter is something like 50 per cent greater than it is in regions where there are comparatively few pebbles?

Examine, with a hand-gla.s.s, the "finger prints" of the little roots on a decaying pebble, and see if you can't guess why. Then read the explanation in this chapter.]

TEAMWORK BETWEEN MOUNTAINS AND PEBBLES

But now, going from little things to big things again, notice how the mountains and the pebbles are linked together in this chain of service.

The mountains, too, continually feed the plains. Ruskin, in speaking of this great service, says:

"The elevations of the earth's surface provide for it a perpetual renovation. The higher mountains suffer their summits to be broken into fragments, and to be cast down in sheets of ma.s.sy rock, full of every substance necessary for the nourishment of plants. These fallen fragments are again broken by frost and ground by torrents into various conditions of sand and clay--materials which are distributed perpetually by the streams farther and farther from the mountain's base. Every shower which swells the rivulets enables their waters to carry certain portions of earth into new positions, and exposes new banks of ground to be mined in their turn. The turbid foaming of the angry water--the tearing down of bank and rock along the flanks of its fury--these are no disturbances of the kind course of nature; they are beneficent operations of laws necessary to the existence of man, and to the beauty of the earth; ... and each filtering thread of summer rain which trickles through the short turf of the uplands is bearing its own appointed burden of earth to be thrown down on some new natural garden in the dingles below."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MILL OF THE EARTHWORM AND THE EARTH MILLS OF THE SEA

"From the gizzard mills of the earthworm to the great earth mills of the sea, all are--most evidently--parts of one great system." (In the picture on the left an earthworm has been laid open to show its grinding apparatus.)]

So we find a wonderful variety of things working together in making and feeding the soil that feeds the world: mountains and pebbles, volcanoes and lichens, the breath of the living and the bones of the dead; the sun, the winds, the sea, the rains; the farmers with four feet, the farmers with six feet; the swallow building her nest under the eaves, the earthworms burrowing under our feet, each bent on its own affairs, to be sure, but at the same time each helping to carry on the great business of the universe. From the little gizzard mills of the earthworm to the great earth mills of the sea, that renew the soil for the ages yet to come, all are--most evidently--parts of one great system; are together helping to work out great purposes in the advance of men and things; purposes which require that

"While the earth remaineth, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, shall not cease."

HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY

As I said, most people not only think that they're smarter than their fellow animals, but when you point out to them how clever some of these other animals are, they say: "Oh, _that's_ just instinct!" As if animals don't think and learn by experience, and all, just as we do! You look up "instinct" in the encyclopaedia, and you'll see. Then read Long's "Wood Folk at School."

There's really a lot more fun in shooting animals with a camera than with a shotgun or a rifle. Did you ever try it? "Hunting with a Camera" in "The Scientific American Boy at School," by Bond, will tell you how to get the best results. Other good pointers on animal photography will be found in Verrill's "Boy Collector's Hand Book"

("Photographing Wild Things") and in "On the Trail," by A. B. and Lina Beard.

And if you ever feel like killing a bird "just for fun," read in the diary of "Opal" about the farmer boy who shot the little girl's pet crow; it was "only a crow," he said, and he wanted to see if he could hit it. That will cure you, I think. The diary of "Opal"

reads like a fairy-tale, but it's all true, and although it was written--every word of it--by a little girl of seven, it is one of the most remarkable books that anybody ever wrote. The crow's name, by the way, was "Lars Porsina of Clusium." The little girl used to give her pets names like that.

Don't forget what the great naturalist, Aga.s.siz, said about the pencil being "the best eye"; that is to say, you can get a more accurate knowledge of things and come nearer to seeing them as they really are, by drawing them. Drawing, in the best schools, is a part of Nature Study, and when you get so that you can draw fairly well--as everybody can with practice--you will find there is even more of a thrill in thus _creating_ forms--out of nothing, as you might say--than there is in taking photographs. The pencil is a magician's wand! As an example and inspiration for taking your pencil and sketch-book into the fields, get "Eye Spy," by Gibson, and, of course, Seton's animal books. I do believe Seton drew his pictures with those simple, expressive outlines so that young folks could redraw them. The difference between redrawing a drawing and simply looking at it, is a lot like the difference between _reading_ a book and merely glancing at the print.

You are sure to be interested in Sir John Lubbock's book on "Ants, Bees and Wasps," and you will find a world of interesting things about the earlier animal days of man in his "Origin of Civilization" and "Pre-Historic Times."

And who do you suppose had most to do with teaching men they were really brothers, and so bringing them up to the civilized life we know to-day? Mother! (See Drummond's "Ascent of Man," or Chapter XII of "The Strange Adventures of a Pebble," where the whole marvellous story of evolution is told in simple form.)

If Nature Study proves half as delightful and profitable to you as I am sure it will, the following list of books will be very useful in building up your library on the subject, and in selecting books from the public library:

"Among the Farmyard People," by Clara D. Pierson, deals with various things you probably never noticed about chickens and pigs, and other domestic animals. "Among the Meadow People," by the same author, tells about birds and insects. You can see what her "Among the Pond People" tells about--tadpoles, frogs, and so on. Really, it's a perfect fairy-land, an old pond is! "Among the Moths and b.u.t.terflies," by Julia P. Ballard, is about fairies, too, as the t.i.tle shows.

For children of the seventh to eighth grades, and up, Hornaday's "American Natural History" will be a delight, and it has loads of pictures which, as in all well-ill.u.s.trated scientific books, are as valuable as the text. You know who Hornaday is, don't you? He is the man at the head of the great Zoo in New York City.

Margaret W. Morley's "The Bee People" is worthy of its subject, and that's about the highest praise you could give to a book about bees, I think. Then don't forget, when you are in the library, to look up her "Gra.s.shopper Land." The gra.s.shopper book also treats of the gra.s.shopper's cousins, which include the crickets and the katydids; yes, and the "walking sticks"; and the "praying mantis."

(Did you know that whether you spell this weird little creature's first name, "praying," with an "e" or an "a" you'd be correct?)

Every boy and girl, of course, is supposed to know about Ernest Thompson Seton's books, but for fear some of them don't, I'll mention a few that it simply wouldn't do to miss. "Animal Heroes"

gives the history of a cat, a dog, a pigeon, a lynx, two wolves and a reindeer; "Krag and Johnny Bear" is made up from his larger book, "Lives of the Hunted"; "Lobo, Rag and Vixen" is from his "Wild Animals I Have Known," and "The Trail of the Sandhill Stag."

John Burroughs is very different from Seton and Long, but the older you get the better you will like him. His is one of the great names in the study of Nature's pages at first hand and, as literature, ranks with the work of Th.o.r.eau. Get his "Birds, Bees and Other Papers," "Squirrels and Other Fur-bearers."

Darwin, one of the greatest men in the whole history of science--the man whose name is most prominently identified with the greatest discovery in science, the principle of evolution--how do you suppose he started out? Just by looking around! Read about it in "What Mr. Darwin Saw in His Voyage around the World."