60 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



that harvest which is the end of the world, and whose reapers 

 are the angels ? 



No pursuit has a truer dignity or a nobler aim. The farmer 

 is the co-worker of the Creator. God is the great cnltivator. 

 He lifts up the mountain of rock from the bosom of the eartli, 

 and when tlie fire which heaved it from its deep foundations 

 has gone out, the process of cultivation begins. The atmos- 

 pliere wreathes itself around the granite's face, and softens it. 

 The rain bears the impalpable dust to the plain. The seed is 

 burne to it on the wings of the wind. The solitary place is 

 made glad, and the wilderness buds and blossoms as tiie rose. 



A beautiful example of Nature's processes of culture may be 

 found in the agency of water in the formation and growth of 

 organic life — water, itself the most beautiful of the works 

 of God, the emblem of His purity and goodness, one of the 

 chief ministers of His ever-creating and renewing power. 

 Borne upon the bosom of the air, the watery vapor softens the 

 rock and creates the soil itself. Mingling with and impregnat- 

 ing the atmosphere, it penetrates and permeates the soil, finds 

 its way into the leaf and pores of every plant, and mingles 

 with the life-blood of every living being. It rises with the 

 atmosphere, wliich holds it in suspension in proportion to the 

 warmth of its temperature. When the air touches the colder 

 mountain-top or mountain-side, it bears behind, in the floating 

 mist or cloud, a portion of its burden. This re-appears in tlie 

 rill or gushing spring on the thirsty plain beneath. Again, 

 when a warmer current of tlie air, charged with moisture, 

 meets and mingles with a colder current, the mean tempera- 

 ture, which is tiie result of the union, is incapable of holding 

 in suspension the mean quantity of vapor. Again, the cloud is 

 formed and the excess of moisture falls to tlie earth in the 

 refieshing and fertilizing shower, washing the air as it passes, 

 of the vapors which, noxious to man, yet minister to vegetable 

 life. • 



Observe another form of the same beautiful process — when 

 as night approaches and the surface of the earth begins to cool, 

 the air in contact with it begins to cool also, and, like the 

 current on the mountain-top, to give up a portion of its watery 

 burden. This water descends in particles infinitely minute? 

 which collect on every leaf and hang on every blade of grass in 



