"It's like the story of
the rats and the grains of corn!"
"Yes, there is no end to the increase that Mother Nature gives to us,"
said Daddy Blake. "The earth is a wonderful place. It is like a big
arithmetic table--it multiplies one seed into many."
The long Summer vacation was now at hand. Hal and Mab did not have to go
to school, and they could spend more time in the garden with their mother,
with Uncle Pennywait or Aunt Lolly, while Daddy Blake, every chance he
had, used the hoe often to keep down the weeds.
"There is nothing like hoeing to make your garden, a success," he told the
children.
"Do they hoe on big farms?" asked Hal.
"Well, on some, yes. I'll take you children to a farm, perhaps before the
Summer is over, and you can see how they do it. Instead of hoeing, though,
where there is a big field of corn or potatoes, the farmer runs a
cultivator through the rows. The cultivator is like a lot of hoes joined
together, and it loosens the dirt, cuts down the weeds and piles the soft,
brown soil around the roots of the plants just where it is most needed.
But our garden is too small for a horse cultivator--that is one drawn by a
horse.
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