Besides, hoeing around your corn and beans makes the dirt nice and
finely pulverized--like the pulverized sugar with which Mother makes icing
for the cakes. And the finer the dirt is around the roots of a plant the
more moisture it will hold and the better it will be for whatever is
growing, as I have told you before."
"Well, we'll hoe a little bit," said Hal.
He and his sister got their hoes and soon they were so interested in
cutting down the weeds in between the rows that they forgot about going
off to play. Hal noticed that the ears of corn on his stalks were getting
larger inside the green husk that kept the soft and tender kernels from
being broken, as might have happened if they were out in the air, as
tomatoes grow.
And so the gardens grew, just as did that of "Mistress Mary, quite
contrary," about whom you may read in Mother Goose, or some book like
that. Sometimes it rained and again it was quite dry, with a hot sun
beating down out of the blue sky.
"If we don't get rain pretty soon we shall have to water the gardens,"
said Daddy Blake one night after about a week of very dry weather. Around
the roots of the many plants the earth was caked and hard, so that very
little air could get down to nourish the growing things.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91