'Father put no chalk on our field, and we had such a heap of wheat!'
5. 'Yours is good land. This up here has never been used for farming. It
had little old trees on it, you know, and they were cut down and their
roots dug out of the ground; and now, look at it! It is poor soil.'
6. 'How do you know it is poor?'
'Look at the field below, what a nice brown it is! That will grow
anything, but this is all colours--black, red, yellow, and green.
7. 'I have been a long way to fetch this chalk: I started off with old
Dobbin this morning before it was light, and got it out of the
chalk-pit.'
8. 'When we were fast asleep!' said Dora.
'Then you don't buy chalk at a shop?' said Harry.
Joe laughed.
'No; it comes out of the ground.'
'This is like the slate story,' said Dora.
Harry nodded.
9. 'But, Joe, I want to know how the chalk makes the ground good.'
'I don't know how, but it does. If it lies here for a year or more, the
earth will turn brown, and we can grow wheat in it. Besides, chalk holds
water, and so it will keep the ground moist up here.'
10. 'How?'
'Well, when it rains, the water will not run away through the earth, but
will stay in the lumps of chalk. Are you going? Good-bye, then.
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