HARVEST SEASON. 163 



so well as those whose essential interests are 

 at stake therein. To those especially, who are 

 in difficulties for money, and have, perhaps, 

 borrowed for this occasion the danger of ruin 

 from weather-spoiled, or otherwise deficient 

 crops, is an oppressing anxiety. As with hay, 

 so with other produce, the crop, which by 

 weather is reduced to half its value, costs, 

 perhaps, twice as much in extra labour to get 

 it up. Let those, therefore, who regard as a 

 calamity a shower of rain on the day of a pro- 

 posed excursion, think how slight their trouble 

 really is, compared with that of the industrious 

 struggling agriculturist, whose hopes and la- 

 bours for a year are, perhaps, exchanged for 

 disappointment and despair by the dripping 

 season ! 



There is not so much to explain, with regard 

 to the grain harvest, as there is in hay-making, 



