Editorial January 15, 1903 Issue

A Fallow Field

S. with contributions from Whittier, Joseph Mazzini, Edwin Markham

Rich , well-watered fields stretched away in all directions, fair and fruitful. In the midst was the old apple orchard, which swung out its pink-white censers every spring, prophesying in beauty and fragrance the plenty of the autumn. But what a contrast was there just at the foot of the orchard,—such a tangle of wild things! Briers and burrs, thorns and thistles and nettles, and in and out and over all, with sinuous grace, crept the poison ivy.

In was not surprising that the good farmer's purpose to plow up that fallow field had been long deferred. However, the morning came which brought the courage to cut and grub and burn and plow; a year later, the neglected field was a sea of golden grain.

During all its past the fallow field was blessed with the same rich soil that, in the orchard, had for years supplied the farmer's fireside with golden pippins and winter sweets; there was the same bright sunshine, the same refreshing rain, the same gentle dew. The brook danced just as merrily amid the tangled briers as under the heavily laden old apple-trees. Nature's work was done, and done well, and when there was added the resolute effort to uproot the noxious weeds, stir the soil, and cast the grain, a rich abundance smiled its blessing where the unsightly growth had been before.

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