TIMES AND SEASONS. 



13 



CHAPTER III. 



cimes AHD ^GAsons 



HE moment we begin to 

 study the lives of plants 

 we are brought face to 

 face with the universe. We 

 cannot consider the very- 

 small without considering 

 the infinitely great. The 

 life of every plant in our 

 garden hangs on the laws 

 governing the movements 

 of the planets. Every mel- 

 on vine that lifts its yellow cups in the warm air looks 

 to a star for inspiration, and its fruit claims acquaint- 

 ance with the sun by the blushes in its melting heart. 

 The roll of our planet to the east divides the day into 

 light and darkness, wherein plants grow and sleep, 

 work and rest. The swinging of our old earth around 

 the solar spaces divides the garden into a time for 

 birth and a time for death. These things we must 

 understand before we plant a single seed. 



In all our country the year is divided into two 

 parts, the growing season and the season of slower 

 growth or of complete rest. On the twenty-first of 

 December the sun casts its longest shadows at noon. 

 After that day the days slowly grow longer and the 

 nights shorter until the twenty-first of June. Then 

 the shadows are shortened at noon, the days at their 

 longest, the nights very short. Soon after there is, 

 in the Northern States, a perceptible shortening of 



