Miscellaneous. 359 



recommend Sneed, Greenboro and Alton. For late, Heath, Salway, 

 Picquet's Late and Smock. It should also be borne in mind that late 

 clings, if good, are always profitable. — Colman's Rural World. 



THE BREAKING PLOW. 



The following poem from the pen of Nixen Waterman appeared in 

 the January number of Success. It is worth reproducing: 



I am the plow that turns the sod 



That has lain for a thousand years ; 

 Where the prairie's v/ind-tossed flowers nod 



And the wolf her wild cub rears, 

 I come, and in my wake, like rain, 



Is scattered the golden seed, 

 I change the leagues of lonely plain 

 To fruitful gardens and fields of grain 



For men and 'their hungry breed. 



I greet the earth in its rosy morn, 



I am first to stir the soil,, 

 I bring the glory of wheat and com. 



For the crowning of those who toil ; 

 I am civilization's zeal and sign. 



Yea, I am the mighty pen 

 That writes the sod with a pledge divine. 

 And promise to pay with bread and wine 



For the sweat of honest men. 



I am the end of things that were, 



And the birth of things to be, 

 My coming makes the earth to stir 



With a new and strange decree ; 

 After its slumbers, deep and long. 



I waken the drowsy sod. 

 And sow my furrows with lilts of song 

 To glad the heart of the mighty throng 



Slow feeling the way to God. 



A thousand summers the prairie rose 



Has gladdened the hermit bee, 

 A thousand winters the drifting snows 



Have whitened the grassy sea ; 

 Before rcte curls the wavering smoke 



Of the Indian's smoldering fire. 

 Behind me rise— was it God who spoke?— 

 At the toil-enchanted hammer's stroke. 



The town and the glittering spire. 



I give the soil to the one who does, - 



For the joy of him and his, 

 I rouse the slumbering world that was 



To the diligent world that is ; 

 Oh ! seer with vision that looks away 



A thousand long years from now, 

 'I'he marvelous nation your eyes survey 

 Was born for the purpose that here, today, 



Is guiding the breaking plow ! 



