racy of the soil

We have got such foreign and fantastic field sports as lawn-tennis, polo, croquet, cricket, and the like—very excellent, I believe, and health-giving exercises in their way, still not racy of the soil, but rather alien, on the contrary, to it, as are, indeed, for the most part the men and women who first imported and still continue to patronise them.

In the hedge: ... purple loose-strife. (That our young maid's long purples call and literal shepherds give a grosser name. So racy of the soil!)