1 1 6 IRature Studies in Berkshire. 



the long story of the soil, its marvellous connection 

 with the life of man, its challenge to his brain and 

 his brawn, its stern exaction of his toil, its generous 

 recompense for all that he has done for it, and the 

 constant relation it bears to his life, his institutions, 

 and his progress. To read the story of the cornfield 

 is to peruse the tale of man's progress out of savagery 

 into civilisation. It is the Odyssey of his wanderings 

 in search of his own kingdom of power in stable 

 society, in expanding arts, in strengthening institu- 

 tions. The tale of man's tillage of the field is one 

 of those many stories in which is shown the vast 

 unity of nature, the working together of all things 

 for the good of mankind and for the glory of God. 



If you will listen, therefore, with open ear to the 

 voices of the corn, they will carry you away into a 

 far-off past where you shall see the primitive farmer 

 breaking up the soil with his sharpened stick or his 

 stone hoe, which later becomes developed, through a 

 succession of related ideas, into the spade and the 

 plough. And when one sees in fancy that early estate 

 of the human family, he sees the beginnings of the 

 fertility which is the guaranty of man's continuance 

 upon the earth. 



The spade is the prophecy of all those processes 

 by which the soil of the earth is fitted for a larger 

 fruitfulness. The hand of man upon the soil means 

 more fruit than it could bear without his help. He 

 makes a thousand grass-blades grow where there was 

 one before. He multiplies every grain of corn and 



