Cole did not believe fifty tons of waste could magically repair fifteen years of poor soil.
Clara's notebooks warned repeatedly against magical thinking.
But incorporated with straw and managed carefully, the material could add organic matter, support microbial life, alter local pH conditions, and begin loosening a soil system that had been chemically and structurally hostile to crops.
The second resource was harder to explain without sounding insane.
Seeds.
Millions of them.
Tomato processing pulp contained enormous quantities of seed.
Many would be damaged.
Many would never germinate.
Some had passed through conditions unfavorable to survival.
But Cole believed enough remained viable to matter.
His grandmother had taught him how tomato seeds were traditionally fermented before cleaning and storage.
Fresh seeds were coated in gelatinous material containing germination inhibitors.
Fermentation helped break that coating down.
It also reduced certain seed-borne problems.
The industrial residue had been sitting and fermenting.
To the factory, that meant odor.
To Cole, it meant possibility.
He had no guarantee.
That was important.
The plan could fail.
The seed might be mostly dead.
The soil reaction might be too uneven.
The organic material might overheat.
Nitrogen could become temporarily unavailable.
The field could become a weed-infested mess.
The county could force him to bury or remove everything before the process stabilized.
Arthur Vance could turn out to be completely right.
Cole accepted all of that.
He simply believed the odds were better than everyone assumed.
The first three nights after the trucks left were the worst.
The smell settled over the field after sunset.
People called again.
One neighbor drove up at eleven at night and demanded to know how long it would continue.
Cole apologized.
"Three weeks?"
the neighbor asked.
"No."
Cole shook his head.
"I'm incorporating it."
"When?"
"Tonight."
At 12:06 a.m., the John Deere came to life.
Cole attached an old disk implement.
He worked beneath portable lights.
Pass after pass, the disks cut into the clay and folded tomato residue beneath the surface.
He did not simply bury giant piles.
He spread them.
Mixed them.
Broke compacted layers where the equipment could reach.
Then incorporated old wheat straw.
Twenty tons over several weeks.
The straw came from two farms that had no use for weathered bales unsuitable for feed.
Cole paid mainly for hauling.
Clara's notes emphasized balance.
Too much wet nitrogen-rich material without enough carbon could create anaerobic, overheated decomposition.
The straw added structure and carbon.
Cole worked from midnight until four because the cool air reduced odor and because his borrowed tractor overheated less at night.
Then he slept four hours.
Got up.
Returned to the field.
He monitored temperature using an old brass probe.
He checked pH repeatedly.
Not just surface readings.
Different depths.
Different zones.
He wrote everything down.
April 18.
North section hotter than expected.
More straw.
April 21.
Odor declining.
Clay beginning to crumble at disk depth.
April 27.
Rain.
Drainage visibly improved in west furrows.
May 2.
Biological activity increasing.
Worms found in test trench.
That last note made Cole sit quietly for several minutes.
He had dug that field before.
Worms had been rare.
Now he found three in one trench.
By early May, the smell had weakened enough that complaints stopped.
Arthur Vance remained amused.
He met Cole at the farm-supply store.
"Heard the sewer finally quit steaming."