ee you," said Eugene. "I like your country around here. It
looks prosperous."

"It is prosperous," said the old patriarch, drawing up a chair which
stood at the foot of a tree and seating himself. Eugene sank back into
the hammock.

"It's a soil that's rich in lime and carbon and sodium--the things which
make plant life grow. We need very little fertilizer here--very little.
The principal thing is to keep the ground thoroughly cultivated and to
keep out the bugs and weeds."

He cut at his stick meditatively. Eugene noted the chemical and physical
knowledge relative to farming. It pleased him to find brain coupled with
crop cultivation.

"I noticed some splendid fields of wheat as I came over," he observed.

"Yes, wheat does well here," Blue went on, "when the weather is
moderately favorable. Corn does well. We have a splendid apple crop and
grapes are generally successful in this state. I have always thought
that Wisconsin had a little the best of the other valley states, for we
are blessed with a moderate climate, plenty of streams and rivers and a
fine, broken landscape. There are good mines up north and lots of
lumber. We are a prosperous people, we Wisconsiners, decidedly
prosperous. This state has a great future."

Eugene noted the wide space between his clear blue eyes as he talked. He
liked the bigness of his conception of his state and of his country. No
petty little ground-harnessed ploughman this, but a farmer in the big
sense of the word--a cultivator of the soil, with an understanding of
it--an American who loved his state and his country.

"I have always thought of the Mississippi valley as the country of the
future," said Eugene. "We have had the Valley of the Nile and the Valley
of the Euphrates with big populations, but this is something larger. I
rather feel as though a great wave of population were coming here in the
future."

"It is the new paradise of the world," said Jotham Blue, pausing in his
whittling and holding up his right hand for emphasis. "We haven't come
to realize its possibilities. The fruit, the corn, the wheat, to feed
the nations of the world can be raised here. I sometimes marvel at the
productivity of the soil. It is so generous. It is like a great mother.
It only asks to be treated kindly to give all that it has."

Eugene smiled. The bigness of his prospective father-in-law's feelings
lured him. He felt as though he could love this man.

They talked on about other thing