It wasn’t long before we all of us realized that we had opened up a field even larger than any of us had dreamed. When we saw almost two hundred acres spring to life as a result of our initial effort; as we saw front dooryards blossom with flower gardens and back dooryards become alive with truck gardens; as we saw orchard after orchard, which until now had been about as sightly as a patch of dead hemlocks, step forth trim and neat and full, not of dead hopes, but of big promise; as we noted the absence of village loafers and grocery store hangers-on, we caught an inkling of what a power we had set in motion. And the joy of it came in the realization that this was no new and imported power, but native energy which all the while had been here latent. These acres, this labor which had been lying idle, was now waking up. It represented thousands of dollars when aroused and only so many cents when dormant. A man couldn’t have come in here and bought this plant--houses, barns, fields, stock, men, for much less than a million dollars at any time, and yet it hadn’t been worth to those who possessed it what it was taxed. Quick with life as it was now it was coming to its own. CHAPTER X RESULTS From the moment my seeds began to show in tiny sprouts above the ground until the full grown produce was safely garnered, I lived with a hoe in my hands. Much to Hadley’s disgust I also kept a hoe in his hands most of the time. I didn’t allow a weed either in my truck garden or my potato patch ever to get more than two inches high. Instead of hoeing once I hoed a half dozen times. The advantage of this is not so much in keeping down the weeds as it is in stirring up the soil so that the earth keeps fresh and alive and porous. Hadley was disgusted. “Lawd-a-mighty,” he exclaimed, as we started for the potato patch with hoes over our shoulders for the fourth cultivation, “ye’ll hoe your stuff to death.” “You wait and see the results,” I said. “Ye b’lieve every darn thing them school teachers tell ye?” “Pretty nearly,” I said. “It’s all right for them to preach,” he said, “but I’ll bet a dollar to a doughnut thet they’d quit preachin’ hoein’ mighty quick if ye gave them this five-acre patch to hoe theirselves.” But I was satisfied with results at the end of the first month. No one could ask for hardier looking plants than I had. But Hadley was not convinced even with this visible proof. “They’ve grown spite of ye,” he said. “Anyhow the tarnation bugs will eat ’em up afore you’re through. Always do.”