240 THE CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



a weight of one ton 500 feet high; or 500 tons a foot high. 

 What wonderful exercise of power is then going on unper- 

 ceived by the farmer as he sees his crops growing and com- 

 bining a thousand pounds of carbon in his crop of hay upon 

 each acre; thus exerting a force equal to that of throwing 

 a weight of a ton 500,000 feet , or 100 miles up above the 

 surface of the earth. Truly the farmer lives amid the most 

 wondrous forces of nature, equal in intensity to those which 

 produce earthquakes, cause volcanoes to burst with liquid 

 fire, and rend mountains asunder; yet he does not perceive 

 it, until the minds eye is turned upon the hidden secrets 

 which lie in the tender rootlet and the verdant leaf, as well 

 as in the great stem of the most ancient monarch of the 

 forest. 



