THB CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 23 



MARCH. 



SEED-TIME. 



"Doth not the husbandman plow all the day and openeth 

 and breaketh the clods of his ground, that he may sow ? When 

 he hath made it plain will he not spread abroad the vetches, and 

 sow cummin, and cast in wheat by measure, and the appointed 

 barley and rye in their place ? God will instruct him to 

 discretion, even his God will teach him," Isaiah xxviii. 23—26. 

 — Cranmer's Bible, Ed. 1541. 



March may justly be called the seed month. The 

 Sower now goes forth, and anxiously commits his 

 precious treasure to the ground, in the full assurance 

 that the vegetative powers of nature will reward him 

 for his labour thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold. The 

 operation of sowing is indeed simple and common ; 

 but does the husbandman ever stop to consider the 

 inexplicable change his seed must undergo before hia 

 expectations can be realized ? A moment's reflection 

 will be sufficient to shew that the vegetation of seeds 

 is one of nature's wonders, or rather of nature's God : 

 for, as an old writer observes, 'nature is nothing less 



