He taught them how to destroy scurf on wheat, by sprinkling it and the granary and inundating the cracks in the floor with a solution of common salt; and how to chase away weevils by hanging up orviot in bloom everywhere, on the walls and the ceilings, among the grass and in the houses.
He had "recipes" for exterminating from a field, blight, tares, foxtail, and all parasitic growths which destroy the wheat. He defended a rabbit warren against rats, simply by the odor of a guinea-pig which he placed in it.
One day he saw some country people busily engaged in pulling up nettles; he examined the plants, which were uprooted and already dried, and said:
"They are dead.
Nevertheless, it would be a good thing to know how to make use of them.
When the nettle is young, the leaf makes an excellent vegetable; when it is older, it has filaments and fibres like hemp and flax.
Nettle cloth is as good as linen cloth. Chopped up, nettles are good for poultry; pounded, they are good for horned cattle.
The seed of the nettle, mixed with fodder, gives gloss to the hair of animals; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow coloring-matter. Moreover, it is an excellent hay, which can be cut twice.
And what is required for the nettle?
A little soil, no care, no culture.
Only the seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to collect it.
That is all. With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful.
It is exterminated.
How many men resemble the nettle!"
He added, after a pause:
"Remember this, my friends:
there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators."
The children loved him because he knew how to make charming little trifles of straw and cocoanuts.
When he saw the door of a church hung in black, he entered: he sought out funerals as other men seek christenings.
Widowhood and the grief of others attracted him, because of his great gentleness; he mingled with the friends clad in mourning, with families dressed in black, with the priests groaning around a coffin. He seemed to like to give to his thoughts for text these funereal psalmodies filled with the vision of the other world.