THE PLOW

BY V. F. BOYSON

[By courtesy Everybody's Magazine.]

I am a worker.

Sleep on and take your rest

Though my sharp coulter shows white in the dawn:

Beating through wind and rain,

Furrowing hill and plain

Till twilight dims the west

And I stand darkly against the night sky.

I am a worker, I, the plow.

I feed the peoples.

Eagerly wait on me

High-born and low-born, pale children of want:

Kingdoms may rise and wane,

War claim her tithe of slain,

Hands are outstretched to me.

Master of men am I, seeming a slave,

I feed the peoples, I, the plow.

I prove God's word true

Toiling that earth may give

Fruit men shall gather with songs in the sun.

Where sleeps the hidden grain

Corn-fields shall wave again;

Showing that while men live

Nor seed nor harvest time ever will cease.

I prove God's words true, I, the plow.

CALIFORNIA

INTRODUCTION

THE EARTH'S CLOTHING

It has been calculated that if the earth were tunneled direct to the other side, 7,918 miles would be traveled in making the journey. But a difficulty would be met in this endeavor: After going a few miles, the heat would be so intense that further progress would be impossible. For as we descend into the earth, after going a very little way, the temperature rises at the rate of 1 degree for every 50 feet, a rate that is universal over the earth's surface, and for the greatest depth attained.

From the known laws of the conduction of heat the conclusion follows that at a depth of 15 to 20 miles below the surface the earth is red hot, while the heat 100 miles deeper, if applied at the surface, would liquefy all materials at the surface crust. These known facts have led to an hypothesis that the interior of the earth is more or less fluid, and that the crust is only a thin shell floating on the molten globe.

However, the earth as a body is very rigid and subjected to a pressure so great that despite the high temperature, the interior is locked into a solid mass as rigid as steel itself.

But after all, we are concerned less with the interior of the earth and with the surface more. Our aim is to know the outer covering-the clothing that encloses this hidden interior-and to use its history to our profit and good. Every science has labored with the secret that is hidden in this clothing of the earth that the world might know some of the stories it has to tell of the

strange forms of vegetation that once visited here; of the bizarre creatures that peopled it in old days-before man came and before the myriads of present-day friends and foes had sprung into existence; of the monsters that throve and multiplied and brought fear and death to weaker kind; of the hideous reptiles that crawled over the slimy domain, battling with each other or with the

denizens of the forest; of primitive man-weak, dull, savage, and yet endowed with more cunning of brainfulfilling his mission and preparing the way for better and higher tribes; of all the agencies that have been at work in the making of the garment that covers this great body; of the soil, the real covering, and all it means: these many stories have been told in rock and stone and

in slowly perishable materials, and so clearly told that man reads and reflects and profits in the lessons that are learned. And of some of these we want to learn in the pages that follow.

The soil: the clothing of the earth. The real clothing of the earth is the soil-and we are to study it: the good, kind soil that brings us so many useful and beautiful and wholesome things. For with the soil is the real beginning of all material things, of all useful things; of all things that secure contentment; of all things that lead to comfort and happiness; of all things that have to do with food and raiment and shelter; of all things that advance mankind and promote civilization. All of these things spring from the soil-from the simple, inanimate, material thing we call dirt.

The earth's clothing includes the soil in all its variations; includes the dirt in which plants root and feed and grow; includes the rock and stony structures of sea and mountain; includes the waters of the soil and of the deep; includes the minerals in the mines that man seeks, often losing his life in the search; includes the insect, the worm, the bacterium, and every form of life that labors for its usefulness and grandeur; includes the fruits of field and soil-the life that grows therein and makes food for man and beast; includes the tree that grows and fructifies in forest or orchard; includes the cultivated crop of every variety and species, of every form and description; includes every vegetable type that provides raiment, or covering in the open, or when removed from its place of growth, becomes house and shelter that protects and guards and comforts; includes everything that has use and that supplies a want in every part of the world and for every purpose. All these things come from the soil, from the magnificent garment