TIME TO PLANT. 99 



for planting corn that would apply to the whole coun- 

 try, and meet the case of every farmer. 



Bat, unfortunately, the question of season is not 

 determinate. Temperature rises and falls according 

 to no settled or ascertained law. Frost comes and 

 goes apparently at the dictate of its own humor ; and 

 the weather is capricious to a proverb, and filled with 

 elements of uncertainty. Man has learned to explore 

 the earth, and detect the causes of its fertility, to reg- 

 ulate its production, and make it obedient to his pur- 

 pose. But he cannot subdue the atmosphere to his 

 will, nor assign limits to its phenomena. He can 

 classify all the plants in the vegetable kingdom, and 

 tell with accuracy their times and seasons ; but he can- 

 not reduce storm and sunshine to a system, nor bring 

 the clouds up to time.. He may subdue the most 

 incorrigible soil, but he cannot subjugate the ther- 

 mometer. He can dominate the mysterious energy 

 of the electric fluid, compelling it to traverse the bed 

 of the ocean, or to circulate around the globe on aerial 

 wires to give swift wings to his flashing thought ; yet 

 can he not arrest for a single hour, nor even predict, 

 the fall of the mercury that shall blast a thousand 

 crops. 



Thus science becomes the sport, and man the vic- 

 tim of fluctuating weather. Subject to no fixed laws, 

 and recognizing no assignable limits, it defies alike all 

 human calculation and human control. It comes 

 into the arrangements of husbandry with the reckless 

 power of an autocrat, setting aside appointed days, 

 and thwarting plans innumerable. 



