The copper era and Morenci leader., 1915-07-30

compelled to call a halt on the culti- vating ambitions of the French peas ants. They admired the spirit which prompted the aged ones and the wom- en and the children to dare death in order to make full crop possible, but they did not think that few ex- tra bushels of wheat or of potatoes would compensate France for further losses among it's peasantry. It was necessary, therefore, to call a halt on this fine but dangerous farming en- deavor The toilers did not mind the hell of shell fire any more than the soldiers did, but there are some sac rifices which are needless. So it is that the peasant toll of today must manifest itself only up to the inside limit of danger from dropping projec- tiles. Thus it is that the plain on which I am standing has not yet been turned by the blow.
 Nature has been at work here ever since it felt the first warming touch of springs sun. This battlefield today is covered with flowers, dandelions, daisies, forget-me-nots and violets. The deep pits dug by the earlier fallen shells are now sunken gardens. White and gold, yellow and blue and crim- son, enter into the color scheme of the battlefield. I never knew before the knifelike sharpness of contrast. War and death are in the valley, and peace and life are on the commanding hill. The guns are pounding while over my head two sl1ylarks are soaring and singing. The fast growing grass af- r>--Ir, S-J- 1I,1 e. ,1i- and above them always Is the sky against whose foundations artillery is vainly used
 Reminders of the Battle.
 All along the edges of this plateau the trenches are deeply cut They are used for shelter by the men of both armies during the sweeping fire on this open plain. Today they are some what back of the rearmost trenches of the present fighting line. It is cas- fly learned how savage was the fight in this place where today one picks flowers and listens to the larks sing ing in defiance of the noise of the cannon. Reminders of the battle that has moved on apace are everywhere German shells and French shells ex- pended either vainly or to awful pur- pose are an incumbrance to ones foot steps. When one follows the track of modern war he wonders that any man engaged in it can live to write it's history.
 It is hard to turn away from this field near St Mihiel There have been horrors enough along the line of the way to make one hate war for all time, but yet there is something about 1t which grips the. interest and the imagination. This battlefield of Vaux-Marie is one point of two meet ing lines of triangle, within whose compass the fighting has been at its fiercest and whose edge is still famed by the hot breath of battle. I have said that this triangle Is out of the present fighting, but one cannot so sense 1t while the ground shakes with the roar of artillery ~
 France is high-heartedly hopeful to- day that the line of this fighting will continue to recede northwards and north-eastward, and that the recession will become quicker paced day by day as the spring and the summer ad- vance. As it Is the fragments of vil- lages within this triangle, and which are still shaken by the gunf1re, feel seemingly that their future safety is as assured as if they were removed a thousand leagues from the clashing armies in the valleys of the Aire and the Mouse. The few villagers who have come back have full confidence in the prowess of the French soldiers who are bulwarking the land.
 More DesoIate Villages.
 Near this field of the fighting there are several desolated places which I have seen, but of which have not written, SO like is their condition to that of scores of other villages which I have visited and whose pathos ap- pealed. Pretz and Vassincourt are gone. Louppy le Chateau Is a pile of ruins. At Revigny nothing Is left but the walls of the church and one saints statue, from which destruction in some way or another was warded of.
 We see these places as we pass from the battlefield to a village still standing, at least ft part, and where we may rest, and where we might forget war were it not for the distant rolling of the guns along the line where men are killing men. We arc going back to Paris and from there later hope to go under the same guidance to another part of France, where, as along this line, the armies are at death grips.
 Find Miser's Hidden Pile.