DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



"WONDERS OP JULY"! 



T t h e opening of 

 each new Month, 

 for several years 

 past, we have given 

 an article referring 

 especially to some 

 of the peculiarities 

 of that month as 

 regards the condi- 

 § tion of vegetation, 

 insect life, the im- 

 portant offices 

 which each month 

 has to discharge, 

 and with occasion- 

 al reference to the 

 special duties of the farmer .at such 

 particular period. In these articles 

 we have felt more at liberty to indulge 

 in allusions to the more recondite or hidden things 

 of the farm than has seemed suitable in articles 

 upon the management of the crops and general 

 operations of the month. These operations, how- 

 ever, have frequently had special attention. 



Farmers have been too long and too well con- 

 tented with a partial knowledge of the most com- 

 mon things around them. They have seen their 

 crops grow from year to year, their trees covered 

 with fragrant flowers and luscious fruit, the sea- 

 sons roll grandly on in their appointed cojirse, and 

 have given little heed to the numberless interest- 

 ing sources of instruction and pleasure which 

 throng every path in rural life. In preparing those 

 brief Monthly Essays it has'been our object grad- 

 ually to lead the mind of the reader to these 

 sources, where a wise Providence has created and 

 fixed the abode of a peopled world, all unlike that 

 which comes to the eye without especial observa- 

 tion. These sources may be found in every de- 

 partment of nature, — animal, vegetable and min- 



eral, — and just in proportion as they are investigat- 

 ed and understood, will the happiness of the farm- 

 er be increased, as well as his power to protect his 

 crops and increase his annual profits. 



Some of the most eminent men of the world 

 have given the best powers of their mind to an 

 investigation of this inner life on the farm, and by 

 the glowing descriptions which they have written 

 have charmed and instructed thousands of other 

 minds. The little gnat, so small that it can be 

 seen with the naked eye only in a strong light, 

 was fashioned and launched into existence by the 

 same Almighty Power that gave the elephant his 

 colossal frame and strength, or upheaved the moun- 

 tains that pierce the skies, and whose heads are 

 covered with eternal snows. 



Let us attend, for a few moments, to a look into 

 one of these inner worlds by Sir Joiin Hill, an 

 English gentleman who wrote largely on Natural 

 History and Philosophy, and who prepared a sys- 

 tem of Botany in twenty-six folio volumes. The 

 world which he explored was a single carnation, or 

 gorden pink of the genus "Diantlms," which means 

 "Flower of God," or "Divine Flower," on account 

 of its pre-eminent beauty. He says : 



"The fragrance of a carnation led me to enjoy 

 it frequently and near; While inhaling the pow- 

 erful sweet, I heard an extremely soft but agreea- 

 ble murmuring sound. It was easy to know that 

 some animal, within the covert, must be the mu- 

 sician, and that the little noise must come from 

 some little body suited to produce it. I am fur- 

 nished with apparatuses of a thousand kinds for 

 close observation. I instantly distended the low- 

 er part of the flower, and placing it in a full light, 

 could discover troops of little insects frisking and 

 capering with wild jollity among the narrow pe- 

 destals that supported its leaves, and the little 

 threads that occupied its centre. I was not cruel 

 enough to pull out any one of them ; but adapt- 

 ing a microscope to take in, at one view, the whole 

 base of the flower, I gave myself an opportunity 



