He was fast turning into a country boy.  All the dull business of putting in the crops was a gloriously interesting matter to him—partly because it was so interesting to Daddy, and because Daddy was learning, even as he was.  They watched together for the first shoots of the oats, the tiny tender leaves of the field-peas, and the slender spears of the maize; and Garth was a proud boy because it was he who first found the potatoes sending green messages above the brown soil he had helped to prepare.  Later, ’Possum showed them how to "hill" them, so as to protect the tender stems: just as she taught them the points of the new calves that were now running in the paddocks, turning from good veal into better beef, and of the sheep that dotted the rises.  Her father showed Tom how to buy them: or rather, he bought them while Tom looked on, vainly trying to see why a beast should be good value at 30*s*., and another, looking—to him—very like the first, should be ruination at 35*s*.  Nick O’Connor, for all his kindliness, was not good at explaining. But ’Possum knew almost as much as her father about stock, and her knowledge was always at their disposal: so that light gradually broke upon Tom, and with it an added interest in his new work. Garth listened with all his ears, and picked up crumbs of information. Already he knew a Hereford from a Shorthorn, and could tell you which was likely to turn into the best beef.